# The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 2/Number 3/Les Salons de Paris

​The title is an ambitious one, for the _salons_ of Paris are Paris itself; and, from the days of the Fronde and of the Hôtel Rambouillet down to our own, you may judge pretty accurately of what is going on upon the great political stage of France by what is observable in those green-rooms and _coulisses_ called the Parisian drawing-rooms, and where, more or less, the actors of all parties may be seen, either rehearsing their parts before the performance, or seeking, after the performance is over, the several private echoes of the general public sentiment that has burst forth before the light of the foot-lamps. Shakspeare's declaration, that "all the world's a stage," is nowhere so true as in the capital of ​Gaul. There, most truly may it be said, are
----"All the men and women merely players;  They have their exits and their entrances,  And one man in his time plays many parts."
Therefore might a profound and comprehensive study of the drawing-rooms of Paris be in a manner a history of France in our own times.
Madame Ancelot's little volume does not aim so high; nor, had it done so, would its author have possessed the talent requisite for carrying out such a design. Madame Ancelot is a writer of essentially second-rate and subordinate capacity, and consequently her account of those _salons de Paris_ that she has seen (and she by no means saw them all) derives no charm from the point of view she takes. To say the truth, she has no "point of view" of her own; she tells what she saw, and (thus far we must praise her) she tells it very conscientiously. Having waited in every instance till the people she has to speak of were dead, Mme. Ancelot has a pretty fair field before her for the display of her sincerity, and we, the public, who are neither kith nor kin of the deceased, are the gainers thereby.
So interesting and so amusing is the subject Madame Ancelot has chosen, that, in spite of her decided want of originality or even talent in treating it, her book is both an amusing and an interesting one. It is even more than that; for those who wish to have a correct notion of certain epochs of the social civilization of modern France, and of certain predominant types in French society during the last forty years, Madame Ancelot's little volume is full of instruction. Perhaps in no society, so much as in that of France, have the political convulsions of the state reacted so forcibly upon the relations of man to man, revolutionizing the homes of private persons, even as the government and the monarchy were revolutionized. In England, nothing of this kind is to be observed; and if you study English society ten years, or twenty years, or fifty years after the fall of Charles I., after the establishment of the Commonwealth, or after the restoration of Charles II., the definitive exile of the Stuarts, and the advent of a foreign dynasty to the throne, you find everywhere its constitutive elements the same,--modified only by such changes of time, circumstance, and fashion, as naturally, in every country, modify the superficial aspect of all society. But in France, it is the very _substratum_ of the social soil that is overturned, it is the constitutive elements of society that are displaced; and the consequence is a general derangement of all relative positions.
In what is still termed _la vieille société Française_, little or nothing was left to chance, and one of its great characteristics was order and the perfectly regular play of its machinery. Everything was set down, _noted_, as it were, beforehand,--as strictly so as the ceremonies of a grand diplomatic ceremony, after some treaty, or marriage, or other occasion of solemn conference. Under this _régime_, which endured till the Revolution of '93, (and even, strangely enough, _beyond_ that period,) politeness was, of course, the one chief quality of whosoever was well brought up,--urbanity was the first sign of good company,--and for the simple reason, that no one sought to infringe. There was no cause for insolence, or for what in England is called "exclusiveness," because there was no necessity to repel any disposition to encroach. No one dreamed of the possibility of encroaching upon his neighbor's grounds, or of taking, in the slightest degree, his neighbor's place.
The first French Revolution caused no such sudden and total disruption of the old social traditions as has been generally supposed; and as far as mere social intercourse and social conventionalities were concerned, there was, even amongst the terrible popular dictators of 1793, more of the _tone_ of the _ci-devant_ good company than could possibly be imagined. In later times, every one who knew Fouché remembers that he was con ​stantly in the habit of expressing his indignation at the want of good-breeding of the young exquisites of the Empire, and used perpetually to exclaim, "In _my time_" this or that "would not have been allowed," or, "In _my_ time we were accustomed to do" so and so. Now Fouché's "time" was that which is regarded as the period of universal beheading and levelling.
It is certain, that, under the _régime_ of the Revolution itself, bitter class-hatreds did not at first show themselves in the peaceful atmosphere of society,--and that for more than one reason. First of all, in a certain sense, "society," it may be said, was _not_. Next, what subsisted of society was fragmentary, and was formed by small isolated groups or coteries, pretty homogeneously composed, or, when not so as to rank and station, rendered homogeneous by community of suffering. It must not be imagined that only the highest class in France paid for its opinions or its vanities with loss of life and fortune. The victims were everywhere; for the changes in the governing forces were so perpetual, that, more or less, every particular form of envy and hatred had its day of power, and levelled its blows at the objects of its special antipathy. In this way, the aristocracy and the _bourgeoisie_ were often brought into contact; marriages even were contracted, whether during imprisonment or under the pressure of poverty, that never would have been dreamt of in a normal state of things; and whilst parents of opposite conditions shook hands in the scaffold-surveying _charrettes_, the children either drew near to each other, in a mutual helpfulness, the principle whereof was Christian charity, or met together to partake of amusements, the aim whereof was oblivion. For several years, the turn of every individual for execution might come, and therefore it was difficult, on the other hand, to see who might also _not_ be a friend.
This began to be modified under the Empire, but in a shape not hitherto foreseen. Military glory began to long for what the genuine Revolutionists termed "feudal distinctions." Napoleon was desirous of a court and of an aristocracy; he set to work to create a _noblesse_, and dukes and counts were fabricated by the dozen. Very soon the strong love of depreciation, that is inherent in every Frenchman, seized upon even the higher plebeian classes, and, discontented as they were at seeing the liberties of the movement of '89 utterly confiscated by a military chief, and antipathetic as they have been, time out of mind, to what are called _les traineurs de sabre_, the civilians of France, her _bourgeois_, who were to have their day,--but with very different feelings in 1830,--joined with the genuine Pre-Revolutionary aristocrats, and the _noblesse de l'Empire_ was laughed at and taken _en grippe_. Here was, in reality, the first wide breach made in France in the edifice of good-breeding and good-manners; and those who have been eye-witnesses to the metamorphosis will admit that the guillotine of Danton and Robespierre did even less to destroy _le bon ton_ of the _ancien régime_ than was achieved by the guard-room habits and morals of Bonaparte's glorious troopers, rushing, as they did, booted and spurred, into the emblazoned sanctuary of heraldic distinctions, and taking, as it were, _la société_ by storm.
But soon another alliance and other enmities were to be formed. The Empire fell; the Bourbons returned to France; Louis XVIII. recognized the _noblesse_ of the Imperial government, and the constitution of society as it had been battled for by the Revolution. At the same time his court was filled with all the great historic names of the country, who returned, no longer avowedly the first in authority, and therefore prompt to condescend, but the first in presumption, and therefore prompt to take offence. The new alliance that was formed was that of the plebeian caste with the _noblesse de l'Empire_, against which it had been previously so incensed. Notwith ​standing all the efforts sincerely made by Louis XVIII. to establish a constitutional government and to promote a genuine constitutional feeling throughout France, class-hatreds rose gradually to so violent a height that the king's only occupation soon grew to be the balancing of expediencies. He was forever obliged to reflect upon the choices he could make around him, since each choice made from one party insured him a hundred enemies in the party opposed. This, which was the political part of the drama,--that which regarded the scenes played upon the public stage,--had its instantaneous reflex, as we have already said in the commencement of these pages, in the _salons_, which were the green-rooms and _coulisses_. Urbanity, amenity of language, the bland demeanor hitherto characterized as _la grâce Française_, all these were at an end. Society in France, such as it had been once, the far-famed model for all Europe, had ceased to exist. The ambition which had once been identified with the cares of office or the dangers of war now found sufficient food in the bickerings of party-spirit, and revenged itself by _salon_ jokes and _salon_ impertinence for the loss of a lead it either could not or would not take in Parliament. The descendants of those very fathers and mothers who had, in many cases, suffered incarceration, and death even, together, set to hating each other cordially, because these would not abdicate what those would not condescend to compete for. The _noblesse_ cried out, that the _bourgeoisie_ was usurping all its privileges; and the _bourgeoisie_ retorted, that the time for privilege was past. The two classes could no longer meet together in the world, but formed utterly different sets and _cliques_; and it must be avowed that neither of the two gained in good-manners, or what may be called drawing-room distinction.
From 1815 to 1830, the _noblesse_ had officially the advantage. From 1830 to 1848, the _bourgeoisie_ ruled over the land. But now was to be remarked another social phenomenon, that complicated _salon_ life more than ever. The middle classes, we say, were in power; they were in all the centres of political life,--in the Chambers, in the ministries, in the king's councils, in diplomacy; and with them had risen to importance the Imperial aristocracy, whose representatives were to be found in every department of the public service. All this while, the old families of the _ancien régime_ shut themselves up among themselves entirely, constituted what is now termed the _Faubourg St. Germain_, which never was so exclusive or so powerful (socially speaking) as under Louis Philippe, and a tacit combat between envy and disdain was carried on, such as perhaps no modern civilization ever witnessed. The Faubourg St. Germain arrogated to itself the privilege of exclusively representing _la société Française_, and it must be confessed that the behavior of its adversaries went far to substantiate its claims.
Our purpose in these pages is not to touch upon anything connected with politics, or we could show, that, whilst apparently severed from all activity upon the more conspicuous field of the capital, the ancient French families were employed in reëstablishing their influence in the rural provincial centres; the result of which was the extraordinary influx of Legitimist members into the Chamber formed by the first Republican elections in 1848. But this is foreign to our present aim. As to what regards French _society_, properly so called, it was, from 1804, after the proclamation of the Empire, till 1848, after the fall of Louis Philippe, in gradual but incessant course of sub-division into separate cliques, each more or less bitterly disposed towards the others. From the moment when this began to be the case, the edifice of French society could no longer be studied as a whole, and it only remained to examine its component parts as evidences of the tendencies of various classes in the nation. In this assuredly not uninteresting study, Mme. Ancelot's book is of much service; for a certain number of the different ​_salons_ she names are, as it were, types of the different stages civilization has attained to in the city which chooses to style itself "the brain of Europe."
The description, given in the little book before us, of what in Paris constitutes a genuine _salon_, is a tolerably correct one. "A _salon_," says Mme. Ancelot, "is not in the least like one of those places in a populous town, where people gather together a crowd of individuals unknown to each other, who never enter into communication, and who are where they are, momentarily, either because they expect to dance, or to hear music, or to show off the magnificence of their dress. This is not what can ever be called a _salon_. A _salon_ is an intimate and periodical meeting of persons who for several years have been in the habit of frequenting the same house, who enjoy each other's society, and who have some reason, as they imagine, to be happy when they are brought in contact. The persons who receive, form a link between the various persons they invite, and this link binds the _habitués_ more closely to one another, if, as is commonly the case, it is a woman of superior mind who forms the point of union. A _salon_, to be homogeneous, and to endure, requires that its _habitués_ should have similar opinions and tastes, and, above all, enough of the urbanity of bygone days to enable its frequenters to feel _at home_ with every one in it, without the necessity of a formal introduction. Formerly, this practice of speaking to persons you had not been presented to was a proof of good-breeding; for it was well known that in no house of any distinction would there be found a guest who was not worthy to be the associate of whoever was noblest and best. These habits of social intercourse gave a value to the intellectual and moral qualities of the individual, quite independent of his fortune or his rank; and in these little republics the real sovereign was _merit_."
Madame Ancelot is right here, and there were in Paris several of these _salons_, which served as the models for those of all the rest of Europe. Under the Restoration, two illustrious ladies tried to recall to the generation that had sprung from the Empire or from emigration what the famous _salons_ of old had once been, and the Duchesse de Duras and the Marquise de Montcalm (sister to the then minister, the Duc de Richelieu) drew around them all that was in any way distinguished in France. But the many causes we have noted above made the enterprise a difficult one, and the various divergences of society, politically speaking, rendered the task of the mistress of a house one of surpassing arduousness. Mme. de Staël, who, by her very superiority perhaps,--certainly by her vehemence,--was prevented from ever being a perfect example of what was necessary in this respect, acquired the nickname of _Présidente de Salons_; and it would appear, that, with her resolute air, her loud voice, and her violent opinions, she really did seem like a kind of speaker of some House of Commons disguised as a woman. That the management of a _salon_ was no easy affair the following anecdote will prove. The Duchesse de Duras one day asked M. de Talleyrand what he thought of the evening _réunions_ at her house, and after a few words of praise, he added: "But you are too vivacious as yet, too young. Ten years hence you will know better how to manage it all." Mme. de Duras was then somewhere about fifty-four or five! We perceive, therefore, that, according to M. de Talleyrand, the proper manner of receiving a certain circle of _habitués_ was likely to be the study of a whole life.
We select from Mme. Ancelot's book sketches of the following _maitresses de maison_, because they seem to us the types of the periods of transformation to which they correspond in the order of date:--Mme. Lebrun, Mme. Gérard, Mme. d'Abrantès, Mme. Récamier, Mme. Nodier. Mme. Lebrun corresponds to the period when Pre-Revolutionary traditions were still in force, and when the remembrance yet subsisted of ​a society that had been a real and not a fictive unity. Mme. Gérard--or we should rather say her husband, for she occupied herself little with her guests, whom the illustrious painter entertained--represents the period of the Empire, prolonging itself into the Restoration, and seeking by the immunities of talent and intelligence to bring the two _régimes_ to meet upon what might be termed neutral ground. Mme. d'Abrantès is the type of that last remnant of the half-heroic, half-sentimental epoch which tried to endure even after the first days of 1830, and of which certain verses of Delphine Gay, certain impossible portraits of invincible colonels, certain parts played by the celebrated Elleviou, and the Troubadourish "_Partant pour la Syrie_" of Queen Hortense, are emblematical. Mme. Récamier, although in date all but the contemporary of Mme. Lebrun, is, in her position of mistress of a _salon_, essentially the impersonation of a foible peculiar to the present day; she typifies the class of women who, in Paris, are absolutely absorbed by the thought of their _salons_, for whom to receive is to live, and who are ready to expire at the notion of any celebrity not being a frequenter of their tea-table. Mme. Nodier's--and here, as with Mme. Gérard, we must substitute the husband for the wife, and say Charles Nodier's--_salon_ was the menagerie whither thronged all the strange beings who, after the Revolution of July, fancied they had some special and extraordinary "call" in the world of Art. Nodier's receptions at the Arsenal represent the literary and artistic movement of 1830.
To begin, then, with Mme. Lebrun. This lady was precisely one of those individualities who, since the days of Louis XIV., had found it easy to take their place in French society, who, under the ancien _régime_, were the equals of the whole world, and who, since "Equality" has been so formally decreed by the laws of the land, would have found it impossible, under the Citizen King, Louis Philippe, or under the so-called "Democratic Empire" of Louis Napoleon, to surround themselves with any society save that of a perfectly inferior description.
Mme. Lebrun was the daughter of a very second-rate painter of the name of Vigée, the sister of a poet of some talent of the same name, and was married young to a picture-dealer of large fortune and most expensive and dissipated, not to say dissolute habits, M. Lebrun. She was young,--and, like Mme. Récamier and a few others, remained youthful to a very late term of her existence,--remarkably beautiful, full of talent, grace, and _esprit_, and possessed of the magnificent acquirements as a portrait-painter that have made her productions to this day valuable throughout the galleries of Europe. She was very soon so brilliantly in fashion, that there was not a _grand seigneur_ of the court, a _grande dame_ of the queen's intimacy, a rich _fermier-général_, or a famous writer, artist, or _savant_, who did not petition to be admitted to her soirées; and in her small apartment, in the Rue de Cléry, were held probably the last of those intimate and charmingly unceremonious réunions which so especially characterized the manners of the high society of France when all question of etiquette was set aside. The witty Prince de Ligne, the handsome Comte de Vaudreuil, the clever M. de Boufflers, and his step-son, M. de Sabran, with such men as Diderot, d'Alembert, Marmontel, and Laharpe, were the original _habitués_ of Mme. Lebrun's drawing-room. At the same time used to visit her the bitter, bilious, discontented David, the painter, who, though very young, was annoyed at a woman having such incontestable proficiency in his own art, and whose democratic ideas were hurt at her receiving such a number of what he styled "great people." Madame Lebrun, one day,--little dreaming that she was addressing a future _coupe-tête_ of the most violent species, (perhaps the only genuine admirer of Marat,)--said, smilingly, to the future painter of _Les Sabines_, "David, you are wretched because you are neither Duke nor M ​arquis. I, to whom all such titles are absolutely indifferent, I receive with sincere pleasure all who make themselves agreeable." The apostrophe apparently hit home, for David never returned to Mme. Lebrun's house, and was no well-wisher of hers in later times. But on this occasion she had not only told the truth to an individual, she had touched upon the secret sore of the nation and the time; and vast classes were already brooding in silence over the absurd, vain, and empty regret at being "neither Duke nor Marquis." The Revolution was at hand, and the days rapidly approaching when all such pleasant assemblies as those held by Mme. Lebrun would become forever impossible. At some of these, the crowd of intimates, and of persons all acquainted with each other, was so great, that the highest dignitaries of the realm had to content themselves with sitting down upon the floor; and on one occasion, the Maréchal de Noailles, who was of exceedingly large build, had to request the assistance of several of his neighbors before he could be brought from his squatting attitude to his feet again.
Mme. Lebrun emigrated, like the majority of her associates,--going to Russia, to Italy, to Germany, to England, and everywhere increasing the number of her friends, besides preserving all those of former times, whom she sedulously sought out in their voluntary exile, and to whom, in many cases, she even proved an invaluable friend. In the commencement of the Restoration, Mme. Lebrun returned to France, and established herself definitively at Paris, and at Louveciennes near Marly, where she had a delightful summer residence. Here, as in her salons in the metropolis, she tried to bring back the tone of French society to what it had been before the Revolution, and to show the younger generations what had been the gayety, the grace, the affability, the exquisite good-breeding of those who had preceded them. The men and women of her own standing seconded her, but the younger ones were not to be drawn into high-heartedness; and an observer might have had before him the somewhat strange spectacle of old age gay, gentle, unobservant of any stiff formality, and of youth preoccupied and grave, and, instead of being refined in manners, pedantic. "The younger frequenters of Mme. Lebrun's salon," says Mme. Ancelot, "were strangers to the world into which they found themselves raised; those who surrounded them were of an anterior civilization; they could not grow to be identified with a past which was unknown to them, or known only through recitals that disfigured it.... Amidst the remnants of a society that had been historical, there was, as it were, the breath of a spirit born of our days; new ideas, new opinions, new hopes, nay, even new recollections, were evident all around, and served to render social unity impossible; but, above all, what failed in this one particular centre was youth,--there were few or no young people." This was perfectly true; and Mme. Lebrun's _salon_ is interesting only from the fact of its being the last, perhaps, in which French people of our day can have acquired a complete notion of what the Pre-Revolutionary _salons_ of France were.
The evening _réunions_ at the house of Gérard, the celebrated painter, were among the most famous features of the society of the Restoration. The gatherings at Mmes. de Duras's and de Montcalm's splendid hotels were all but exclusively political and diplomatic; whereas at Gérard's there was a mixture of these with the purely mundane and artistic elements, and, above all, there was a portion of Imperialist fame blended with all the rest, that was hard to be found anywhere else. Gérard, too, had painted the portraits of so many crowned heads, and been so much admitted into the intimacy of his royal models, that, whenever a foreigner of any note visited Paris, he almost immediately asked to be put in a way to be invited to the celebrated artist's Wednesday receptions. This was, to a certain degree, an innovation in regular ​French society; the French being most truly, as has been said, the "Chinese of Europe," and liking nothing less than the intermixture with themselves of anything foreign. But Gérard was one of those essentially superior men who are able to influence those around them, and bring them to much whereto no one else could have persuaded them. Gérard, like many celebrated persons, was infinitely superior to what he _did_. As far as what he _did_ was concerned, Gérard, though a painter of great merit, was far inferior to two or three of whom France has since been justly proud; but in regard to what he _was_, Gérard was a man of genius, who had in many ways few superiors. Few men, even in France, have so highly deserved the reputation of _un homme d'esprit_. He was as _spirituel_ as Talleyrand himself, and almost as clear-sighted and profound. Add to this that nothing could surpass the impression made by Gérard at first sight. He was strikingly like the first Napoleon, but handsomer; with the same purity of outline, the same dazzlingly lustrous eyes, full of penetration and thought, but with a certain _sympathetic_ charm about his whole person that the glorious conqueror of Marengo and Dictator of Gaul never possessed.
Gérard was not entirely French; born in Rome in 1770, his father only was a native of France, his mother was an Italian; and from her he inherited a certain combination of qualities and peculiarities that at once distinguished him from the majority of his countrymen. Full of poetic fire and inspiration, there was in Gérard at the same time a strong critical propensity, that showed itself in his caustic wit and, sometimes, not unmalicious remarks. There was also a perpetual struggle in his character between reflection and the first impulse, and sometimes the _étourderie_ of the French nature was suddenly checked by the caution of the Italian; but, take him as he was, he was a man in a thousand, and those who were in the habit of constantly frequenting his house affirm loudly and with the deepest regret, that they shall never "look upon his like again."
Gérard had built for himself a house in the Rue des Augustins, near the ancient church of St. Germain des Près; and there, every Wednesday evening, summer and winter, he received whatever was in any way illustrious in France, or whatever the other capitals of Europe sent to Paris, _en passant_. "Four small rooms," says Mme. Ancelot, "and a very small antechamber, composed the whole apartment. At twelve o'clock tea was served, with eternally the same cakes, over which a pupil of Gérard's, Mlle. Godefroy, presided. Gérard himself talked; his wife remained nailed to a whist-table, attending to nothing and to nobody. Evening once closed in, cards were the only occupation of Mme. Gérard."
From Mme. de Staël down to Mlle. Mars, from Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo down to M. Thiers, there were no celebrities, male or female, that, during thirty years, (from 1805 to 1835,) did not flock to Gérard's house, and all, how different soever might be their character or position, agreed in the same opinion of their host; and those who survive say of him to this day,--"Nothing in his _salons_ announced that you were received by a great _Artist_, but before half an hour had elapsed you felt you were the guest of a distinguished Man; you had seen by a glance at Gérard's whole person and air that he was something apart from others,--that the sacred fire burned there!"
The regret felt for Gérard's loss by all who ever knew him is not to be told, and speaks as highly for those who cherished as for him who inspired it. His, again, was one of the _salons_ (impossible now in France) where genius and social superiority, whether of birth or position, met together on equal terms. Without having, perhaps, as large a proportion of the old _noblesse de cour_ at his house as had Mme. Lebrun, Gérard received full as many of those eminent personages whose political occupations would have seemed to estrange them from the wor ​ld of mixed society and the Arts. This is a _nuance_ to be observed. Under the Empire, hard and despotic as was the rule of Bonaparte, and anxious even as he was to draw round him all the aristocratic names that would consent to serve his government, there was--owing to the mere force of events and the elective origin of the throne--a strong and necessary democratic feeling, that assigned importance to each man according to his works. Besides this, let it be well observed, the first Empire had a strong tendency to protect and exalt the Arts, from its own very ardent desire to be made glorious in the eyes of posterity. Napoleon I. was, in his way, a consummate artist, a prodigiously intelligent _metteur en scène_ of his own exploits, and he valued full as much the man who delineated or sang his deeds, as the minister who helped him to legislate, or the diplomatist who drew up protocols and treaties. The Emperor was a lover of noise and show, and his time was a showy and a noisy one. Bonaparte had, in this respect, little enough of the genuine Tyrant nature. Unlike his nephew, he loved neither silence nor darkness; he loved the reflection of his form in the broad noon of publicity, and the echo of his tread upon the sounding soil of popular renown. Could he have been sure that all free men would have united their voices in chanting his exploits, he would have made the citizens of France the freest in the whole world. Compression with him was either a mere preventive against or vengeance for detraction.
Now this publicity-loving nature was, we repeat, as much served by Art and artists as by politicians; nay, perhaps more; and for this reason artists stood high during the period of the Empire. Talma held a social rank that under no other circumstances could have been his, and a painter like Gérard could welcome to his house statesmen such as Talleyrand or Daru, or marshals of France, and princes even. We shall show, by-and-by, how this grew to be impossible later. At present we will recur to Mme. Ancelot for a really very true description of two persons who were among the _habitués_ of the closing years of Gérard's weekly receptions, and one of whom was destined to universal celebrity: we allude to Mme. Gay, and her daughter, Delphine,--later, Mme. Girardin. Of these two, the mother, famous as Sophie Gay, was as thorough a remnant of the exaggerations and bad taste of the Empire as were the straight, stiff, mock-classical articles of furniture of the Imperialist hotels, or the _or-moulu_ clocks so ridiculed by Balzac, on which turbaned Mamelukes mourned their expiring steeds. All the false-heroics of the literature of the Empire found their representative (their last one, perhaps) in Mme. Sophie Gay, and it has not been sufficiently remarked that she even transmitted a shade of all this to her daughter, in other respects one of the most sagacious spirits and one of the most essentially unconventional of our own day. A certain something that was not in harmony with the tone of contemporary writers here and there surprised you in Delphine de Girardin's productions, and, as Jules Janin once said, "One would think the variegated plumes of Murat's fantastic hat[2] were sweeping through her brains!" This was her mother's doing. Delphine, who had never lived during one hour of the glory of the Empire, had, through the medium of her mother, acquired a slight tinge of its _boursouflure_; and had it not been for her own personal good taste, she would have been misled precisely by her strong lyrical aptitudes. Madame Gay found in Gérard's _salon_ all the people she had best known in her youth, and she was delighted to have her early years recalled to her. Mme. Ancelot, who, like many of her country women, felt a marked antipathy for Madame Gay, has given a very true portrait of both mother and daughter.
"Many years after," she writes, "when these ladies were (through M. de Girardin) at the head of one of the chief organs of the ​Paris press, they were much flattered and courted; at the period I speak of" (about 1817-1825) "their position was far from brilliant, and Mme. Gay was far from popular. Every word that fell from her mouth, uttered in a sharp tone, and full of bitterness and envy, went to speak ill of others and prodigiously well of herself. She had a mania for titles and tuft-hunting, and could speak of no one under a marquis, a count, or a baron. Her daughter's beauty and talents caused her afterwards to be more generally admitted into society; but at this period she was avoided by most people."
Her daughter's beauty was certainly marvellous, and when, under the reign of Louis Philippe, American society had in Paris more than one brilliant representative and more than one splendid centre of hospitality, where all that was illustrious in the society of France perpetually flocked, we make no doubt many of our countrymen noticed, whether at theatre or concert or ball, the really queenlike air of Mme. de Girardin, and the exquisitely classic profile, which, enframed, as it were, by the capricious spirals of the lightest, fairest flaxen hair, resembled the outline of some antique statue of a Muse.
Delphine Gay and her mother were more the ornaments of the _salon_ of the Duchesse d'Abrantès, perhaps, than of that of Gérard; and as the former continued open long after the latter was closed by death, not only the young girl, whose verses were so immensely in fashion during the Restoration, was one of the constant guests of Junot's widow, but she continued to be so as the wife of Émile de Girardin, the intelligent and enterprising founder of the newspaper "La Presse."
The _salon_ of the Duchesse d'Abrantès was one of the first of a species which has since then found imitators by scores and hundreds throughout France. It was the _salon_ of a person not in herself sufficiently superior or even celebrated to attract the genuine superiorities of the country without the accessory attractions of luxury, and not sufficiently wealthy to draw around her by her splendid style of receiving, and to disdain the bait held out to those she invited by the presence of great "lions." Gérard gave to his guests, at twelve o'clock at night, a cup of tea and "eternally the same cakes" all the year round; but Gérard was the type of the great honors rendered, as we have observed, to Art under the Empire, and to his house men went as equals, whose daily occupations made them the associates of kings. This was not the case with the Duchesse d'Abrantès. She had notoriety, not fame. Her "Mémoires" had been read all through Europe, but it is to be questioned whether anything beyond curiosity was satisfied by the book, and it certainly brought to its author little or none of that which in France stands in lieu even of fortune, but which is not easy to obtain, namely,--_consideration_.
The Duchesse d'Abrantès was rather popular than otherwise; she was even beloved by a certain number of persons; but she never was what is termed _considérée_,--and this gave to her _salon_ a different aspect from that of the others we have spoken of. A dozen names could be mentioned, whose wearers, without any means of "entertaining" their friends, or giving them more than a glass of _eau sucrée_, were yet surrounded by everything highest and best in the land, simply because they were _gens considérables_, as the phrase went; but Mme. d'Abrantès, who more or less received all that mixed population known by the name of _tout Paris_, never was, we repeat, _considérée_.
The way in which Mme. Ancelot introduces her "friend," the poor Duchesse d'Abrantès, on the scene, is exceedingly amusing and natural; and we have here at once the opportunity of applying the remark we made in commencing these pages, upon Mme. Ancelot's truthfulness. She is the _habituée_ of the house of Mme. d'Abrantès; she professes herself attached to the Duchess; yet she does not s ​cruple to tell everything as it really is, nor, out of any of the usual little weaknesses of friendship, does she omit any one single detail that proves the strange and indeed somewhat "Bohemian" manner of life of her patroness. We, the readers of her book, are obviously obliged to her for her indiscretions; with those who object to them from other motives we have nothing to do.
Here, then, is the fashion in which we are introduced to Mme. la Duchesse d'Abrantès, widow of Marshal Junot, and a born descendant of the Comneni, Emperors of Byzantium.
Mme. Ancelot is sitting quietly by her fireside, one evening in October, (some short time after the establishment of the monarchy of July,) waiting to hear the result of a representation at the Théâtre Français, where a piece of her own is for the first time being performed. All at once, she hears several carriages stop at her door, a number of persons rush up the stairs, and she finds herself in the arms of the Duchesse d'Abrantès, who was resolved, as she says, to be the first to congratulate her on her success. The hour is a late one; supper is served, and conversation is prolonged into the "small hours." All at once Mme. d'Abrantès exclaims, with an explosion of delight,--"Ah! what a charming time is the night! one is so deliciously off for talking! so safe! so secure! safe from bores and from duns!" (_on ne craint ni les ennuyeux ni les créanciers_.')
Madame Ancelot affirms that this speech made a tremendous effect, and that her guests looked at each other in astonishment. If this really was the case, we can only observe that it speaks well for the Parisians of the epoch at which it occurred; for, assuredly, at the present day, no announcement of the kind would astonish or scandalize any one. People in "good society," nowadays, in France, have got into a habit of living from hand to mouth, and of living by expedients, simply because they have not the strength of mind to live _out_ of society, and because the life of "the world" forces them to expenses utterly beyond what they have any means of providing for. However, we are inclined to believe that some five-and-twenty years ago this was in no degree a general case, and that Mme. d'Abrantès might perfectly well have been the first _maitresse de maison_ to whom it happened.
"Alas!" sighs Mme. Ancelot, commenting upon her excellent friend's strange confidence,--"it was the secret of her whole life that she thus revealed to us in a moment of _abandon_,--the secret of an existence that tried still to reflect the splendors of the Imperial epoch, and that was at the same time perplexed and tormented by all the thousand small miseries of pecuniary embarrassment. There were the two extremes of a life that to the end excited my surprise. Grandeur! want!--between those two opposites oscillated every day of the last years of the Duchesse d'Abrantès; the exterior and visible portion of that life arranged itself well or ill, as it best could, in the middle,--now apparently colored by splendor, and now degraded by distress; but at bottom the existence was unvaryingly what I state."
Madame d'Abrantès, at the period of her greatest notoriety, occupied the ground-floor of a hotel in the Rue Rochechouart, with a garden, where dancing was often introduced upon the lawn. Some remnants of the glories of Imperialism were collected there, but the principal _habitués_ were men of letters, artists, and young men who danced well! (_les jeunes beaux qui dansaient bien!_) That one phrase characterizes at once the ex-_belle_ of the Empire, the contemporary of the sentimental Hortense de Beauharnais, and of the more than _légère_ Pauline Borghése.
To the "new society of July" Mme. d'Abrantès was an object of great curiosity. "I dote on seeing that woman!" said Balzac, one evening, to Mme. Ancelot. "Only fancy! she saw Napoleon Bonaparte as a mere boy,--knew him well,--knew him as a young man, unknown,--saw him occupied, like anybody else, ​with the ordinary occurrences of every-day life; then she saw him grow, and grow, and rise, and throw the shadow of his name over the world. She seems to me somewhat like a canonized creature who should all at once come and recount to me the glories of paradise."
Balzac, it must be premised, was bitten just at this period by the Napoleon mania, and this transformed his inquisitive attachment for Mme. d'Abrantès into a kind of passion. It was at this period that he chose to set up in his habitation in the Rue Cassini a sort of altar, on which he placed a small statue of the Emperor, with these words engraved upon the pedestal:--
"Ce qu'il avait commencé par l'épée,  Je l'achèverai par la plume!"
What particular part of the Imperial work this was that Balzac was to "complete by the pen" was never rightly discovered,--but for a time he had a sun-stroke for Napoleon, and his attachment for Mme. d'Abrantès partook of this influence.
One anecdote told by Mme. Ancelot proves to what a degree the union of "grandeur" and "want" she has alluded to went. "Mme. d'Abrantès," says her biographer of the moment, "was always absorbed by the present impression, whatever that might happen to be; she passed from joy to despair like a child, and I never knew any house that was either so melancholy or so gay." One evening, however, it would seem that the Hôtel d'Abrantès was gayer than usual. Laughter rang loud through the rooms, the company was numerous, and the mistress of the house in unparalleled high spirits. If the tide of conversation seemed to slacken, quickly Madame la Duchesse had some inimitable story of the _ridicules_ of the ladies of the Imperial court, and the whole circle was soon convulsed at her stories, and at her way of telling them. The tea-table was forgotten. Generally, tea at her house was taken at eleven o'clock; but on this occasion, midnight was long past before it was announced, and before her guests assembled round the table. If our readers are curious to know why, here was the reason: All that remained of the plate had that very morning been put in pawn, and when tea should have been served it was found that tea-spoons were wanting! Whilst these were being sent for to the house of a friend who lent them, Madame la Duchesse took charge of her guests, and drowned their impatience in their hilarity.
It must be allowed that this lady was worthy to be the mother of the young man who, one day, pointing to a sheet of stamped paper, on which a bill of exchange might be drawn, said: "You see that; it is worth five sous now; but if I sign my name to it, it will be worth nothing!" This was a speech made by Junot's eldest son, known in Paris as the Duc d'Abrantès, and as the intimate friend of Victor Hugo, from whom at one time he was almost inseparable.
The eccentric personage we have just spoken of--the Duchesse d'Abrantès--died in the year 1838, in a garret, upon a truckle-bed, provided for her by the charity of a friend. The royal family paid the expenses of her funeral, and Chateaubriand, accompanied by nearly every celebrity of the literary world, followed on foot behind her coffin, from the church to the burying-ground.
Madame d'Abrantès may be considered as the inventor, in France, of what has since become so widely spread under the name of _les salons picaresques_, and of what, at the present day, is famous under the appellation of the _demi-monde_. Her example has been followed by numberless imitators, and now, instead of presuming (as was the habit formerly) that those only receive who are rich enough to do so, it is constantly inquired, when any one in Paris opens his or her house, whether he or she is ruined, and whether the _soirées_ given are meant merely to throw dust into people's eyes. The history of the tea-spoons--so singular at the moment of its occurrence--has since been parodied a hundred times over, and sometimes by mistresses of houses ​whose fortune was supposed to put them far above all such expedients. Madame d'Abrantès, we again say, was the founder of a _genre_ in Paris society, and as such is well worth studying. The _genre_ is by no means the most honorable, but it is one too frequently found now in the social centres of the French capital for the essayist on Paris _salons_ to pass it over unnoticed.
The _salon_ of Mme. Récamier is one of a totally different order, and the world-wide renown of which may make it interesting to the reader of whatever country. As far as age was concerned, Mme. Récamier was the contemporary of Mme. d'Abrantès, of Gérard, nay, almost of Mme. Lebrun; for the renown of her beauty dates from the time of the French Revolution, and her early friendships associate her with persons who even had time to die out under the first Empire; but the _salon_ of Madame Récamier was among the exclusively modern ones, and enjoyed all its lustre and its influence only after 1830. The cause of this is obvious: the circumstance that attracted society to Mme. Récamier's house was no other than the certainty of finding there M. de Chateaubriand. He was the divinity of the temple, and the votaries flocked around his shrine. Before 1830 the temple had been elsewhere, and, until her death, Mme. la Duchesse de Duras was the high-priestess of the sanctuary, where a few privileged mortals only were admitted to bow down before the idol. It is inconceivable how easy a certain degree of renown finds it in Paris to establish one of these undisputed sovereignties, before which the most important, highest, most considerable individualities abdicate their own merit, and prostrate themselves in the dust. M. de Chateaubriand in no way justified the kind of worship that was paid him, nor did he even obtain it so long as he was in a way actively to justify it. It was when he grew old and produced nothing, and was hourly more and more rusted over by selfishness, churlishness, and an exorbitant adoration of his own genius, that the society of his country fell down upon its knees before him, and was ready to make any sacrifice to insure to itself the honor of one of his smiles or one of his looks. In this disposition, Madame Récamier speedily obtained a leading influence over Paris society, and when it was notorious that from four to six every day the "Divinity" would be visible in her _salons_, her _salons_ became the place of pilgrimage for all Paris. As with those of Mme. d'Abrantès, there was a certain mixture amongst the guests, because, without that, the _notoriety_, which neither Chateaubriand nor Mme. Récamier disliked, would have been less easily secured; but the tone of the _réunions_ was vastly different, and at the celebrated receptions of the Abbaye aux Bois (where Mme. Récamier spent her last quarter of a century) the somewhat austere deportment of the _siècle de Louis XIV._ was in vogue. All the amusements were in their nature grave. Mlle. Rachel recited a scene from "Polyeucte" for the author of "Les Martyrs," and for archbishops and cardinals; the Duc de Noailles read a chapter from his history of Mme. de Maintenon; some performance of strictly classical music was to be heard; or, upon state occasions, Chateaubriand himself vouchsafed to impart to a chosen few a few pages of the "Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe."
In her youth Mme. Récamier had been reputed beautiful, and her sole occupation then was to do the honors of her beauty. She did not dream of ever being anything else; and as she remained young marvellously long,--as her beauty, or the charm, whatever it was, that distinguished her, endured until a very late epoch of her life,--she was far advanced in years before the idea of becoming famous through any other medium save that of her exterior advantages ever struck her. Madame Récamier had no intellectual superiority, but, paraphrasing in action Molière's witty sentence, that "silence, well employed, may go far to establish a man's capacity," she resolved to employ well the talent she possessed ​of making other people believe themselves clever. Mme. Ancelot, whose "good friend" she is supposed to have been, and who treats her with the same sincerity she applies to Mme. d'Abrantès, has a very ingenious and, we have reason to fancy,a very true parallel, for Mme. Récamier. She compares her to the mendicant described by Sterne, (or Swift,) who always obtained alms even from those who never gave to any other, and whose secret lay in the adroit flatteries with which he seasoned all his beggings. The best passages in Mme. Ancelot's whole Volume are those where she paints Mme. Récamier, and we will therefore quote them.
"The Recluse of the Abbaye aux Bois," she says, "had either read the story of the beggar, or her instinct had persuaded her that vanity and pride are the surest vulnerable points by which to attack and subject the human heart. From the first to the last of all the orators, writers, artists, or celebrities of no matter what species, that were invited to Mme. Récamier's house, _all_ heard from her lips the same admiring phrases, the first time they were presented to her. With a trembling voice she used to say: 'The emotion I feel in the presence of a superior being does not permit me to express, as I should wish to do, all my admiration, all my sympathy;--but you can divine,--you can understand;--my emotion tells the rest!' This eulogistic sentence, a well-studied hesitation, words interrupted, and looks of the most perfect enthusiasm, produced in the person thus received a far more genuine emotion than that with which he was met. It was no other than the artifice of wholesale, universal flattery,--always and invariably the same,--with which Mme. Récamier achieved her greatest conquests, and continued to draw around her almost all the eminent men of our epoch. All this was murmured in soft, low tones, so that he only to whom she spoke tasted the honey poured into his ear. Her grace of manner all the while was infinite; for though she had no talent for conversation, she had, in the highest degree, the ability which enables one to succeed in certain little combinations, and when she had determined that such or such a great man should become her _habitué_, the web she spun round him on all sides was composed of threads so imperceptibly fine and so innumerable, that those who escaped were few, and gifted with marvellous address."
Mme. Ancelot confesses to having "studied narrowly" all Mme. Récamier's manoeuvres, and to having watched all the thousand little traps she laid for social "lions"; but we are rather astonished herein at Mme. Ancelot's astonishment, for, with more or less talent and grace, these are the devices resorted to in Paris by a whole class of _maitresses de maison_, of whom Mme. Récamier is simply the most perfect type.
But the most amusing part of all, and one that will be above all highly relished by any one who has ever seen the same game carried on, is the account of Mme. Récamier's campaign against M. Guizot, which signally failed, all her small webs having been coldly brushed away by the intensely vainglorious individual who knew he should not be placed above Chateaubriand, and who would for no consideration under heaven have been placed beneath him. The spectacle of this small and delicate vanity doing battle against this vanity so infinitely hard and robust is exquisitely diverting. Mme. Récamier put herself so prodigiously out of her way; she who was indolent became active; she who was utterly insensible to children became maternal; she who was of delicate health underwent what only a vigorous constitution would undertake. But all in vain; she either did not or would not see that M. Guizot would not be _second_ where M. de Chateaubriand was _first_. Besides, she split against another rock, that she had either chosen to overlook, or the importance of which she had undervalued. If Mme. Récamier had for the idol of her shrine at the Abbaye aux Bois M. de Chateaubriand, M. Guizot had also _his_ ​Madame Récamier, the "Egeria" of the Hôtel Talleyrand,--the Princess Lieven. The latter would have resisted to the death any attempt to carry off "her Minister" from the _salons_ where his presence was the "attraction" reckoned upon daily, nay, almost hourly; and against such a rival as the venerable Princess Lieven, Mme. Récamier, spite of all her arts and wiles, had no possible chance. However, she left nothing untried, and when M. Guizot took a villa at Auteuil, whither to repair of an evening and breathe the freshness of the half-country air after the stormy debates of the Chambers, she also established herself close by, and opened her attack on the enemy's outposts by a request to be allowed to walk in the Minister's grounds, her own garden being ridiculously small! This was followed by no end of attentions directed towards Mme. de Meulan, M. Guizot's sister-in-law, who saw through the whole, and laughed over it with her friends; no end of little dancing _matinées_ were got up for the Minister's young daughters, and no end even of sweet biscuits were perpetually provided for a certain lapdog belonging to the family! All in vain! We may judge, too, what transports of enthusiasm were enacted when the Minister himself was _by chance (!)_ encountered in the alleys of the park, and with what outpourings of admiration he was greeted, by the very person who, of all others, was so anxious to become one of his votaries. But, as we again repeat, it was of no use. M. Guizot never consented to be one of the _habitués_ of the _salon_ of the Abbaye aux Bois. It should be remarked, also, that M. Guizot cared little for anything out of the immediate sphere of politics, and of the politics of the moment; he took small interest in what went on in Art, and none whatever in what went on in the so-called "world"; so that where a _salon_ was not predominantly political, there was small chance of presenting Louis Philippe's Prime-Minister with any real attraction. For this reason he was now and then to be met at the house of Mme. de Châtenay, often at that of Mme. de Boigne, but _never_ in any of the receptions of the ordinary run of men and women of the world. _His own salon_, we again say,--the _salon_ where he was what Chateaubriand was at the Abbaye aux Bois,--was the _salon_ of the Princess Lieven; and to have ever thought she could induce M. Guizot to be in the slightest degree faithless to this _habit_ argues, on the part of Mme. Récamier, either a vanity more egregious than we had even supposed, or an ignorance of what she had to combat that seems impossible. To have imagined for a moment that she could induce M. Guizot to frequent her _réunions_ shows that she appreciated neither Mme. de Lieven, nor M. Guizot, nor, we may say, herself, in the light of the high-priestess of Chateaubriand's temple.
However, what Mme. Récamier went through with regard to the arrogant Président du Conseil of the Orléans dynasty, more than one of her imitators are at this hour enduring for some "lion" infinitely illustrious. This kind of hunt after celebrated persons is a feature of French civilization, and a feature peculiarly characteristic of the French women who take a pride in their receptions. A genuine _maitresse de maison_ in Paris has no affections, no ties, save those of her _salon_. She is wholly absorbed in thinking how she shall render this more attractive than the _salon_ of some other lady, who is her intimate friend, but whose sudden disappearance from the social scene, by any catastrophe, death even, would not leave her inconsolable. She has neither husband, children, relatives, nor friends (in the genuine acceptation of the word);--she has, above all, before all, always and invariably, her _salon_. This race of women, who date undoubtedly from the famous Marquise de Rambouillet in the time of the Fronde, are now dying out, and are infinitely less numerous than they were even twenty years ago in Paris; but a few of them still exist, and in these few the ardor we allude to, and which would lead them, ​following in Mme. Récamier's track, to embark for the North Cape in search of some great celebrity, is in no degree abated. Madame Récamier is curious as the arch-type of this race, so purely, thoroughly, exclusively Parisian.
Perhaps to a foreigner, however, no _salon_ was more amusing than that of Charles Nodier; but this was of an utterly different description, and all but strictly confined to the world of Literature and Art. Nodier himself occupied a prominent place in the literature that was so much talked of during the last years of the Restoration and the first years of the Monarchy of July, and his house was the rendezvous for all the combatants of both sides, who at that period were engaged in the famous Classico-Romantic struggle. Nodier was the Head Librarian of the Arsenal, and it was in the _salons_ of this historic palace that he held his weekly gatherings. He himself was scarcely to be reputed exclusively of either party; he enjoyed the favors of the Monarchy, and the sympathies of the Opposition; the "Classics" elected him a member of the Académie Française, and the "Romantics" were perpetually in his intimacy. The fact was, that Nodier at heart believed in neither Classics nor Romantics, laughed at both in his sleeve, and only cared to procure to himself the most agreeable house, the greatest number of comforts, and the largest sums of money possible.
"By degrees," says Mme. Ancelot, "as Nodier cared less for other people, he praised them more, probably in order to compensate them in words for the less he gave them in affection. Besides this, he was resolved not to be disturbed in his own vanities, and for this he knew there was one only way, which was to foster the vanities of everybody else. Never did eulogium take such varied forms to laud and exalt the most mediocre things. Nowhere were so many geniuses whom the public never guessed at raised to the rank of _divinities_ as in the _salons_ of Charles Nodier."
The description contained in the little volume before us, the manner in which every petty scribbler of fiftieth-rate talent was transformed into a giant in the society of Nodier, is extremely curious and amusing, and the more so that it is strictly true, and tallies perfectly with the recollections of the individuals who, at the period mentioned, were admitted to the _réunions_ of the Arsenal.
Every form of praise having been expended upon persons of infinitely small merit, what was to be done when those of real superiority entered upon the scene? It was impossible to apply to them the forms of laudation adapted to their inferiors. Well, then, a species of slang was invented, by which it was thought practicable to make the genuine great men conceive they had passed into the condition of demigods. A language was devised that was to express the fervor of the adorers who were suddenly allowed to penetrate into Olympus, and the strange, misapplied terms whereof seemed to the uninitiated the language of insanity. For instance, if, after a dozen little unshaved, unkempt poetasters had been called "sublime," Victor Hugo vouchsafed to recite one of his really best Odes, what was the eulogistic form to be adopted? Mme. Ancelot will tell us.
"A pause would ensue, and at the end of a silence of some minutes, when the echo of Hugo's sonorous voice had subsided, one after another of the _elect_ would rise, go up to the poet, take his hand with solemn emotion, and raise to the ceiling eyes full of mute enthusiasm. The crowd of bystanders would listen all agape. Then, to the surprise, almost to the consternation, of the uninitiated, one word only would be spoken,--loudly, distinctly, and with strong, deep emphasis spoken; that word would be:
"_Cathedral!!!_
"The first orator, after this effort, would return to the place whence he had come, and another, succeeding to him, after repeating the same pantomime as the former, would exclaim:
"_Ogive!!!_
"Then a third would come forward, and, after looking all around, would risk the word:
"_Pyramid-of-Egypt!!!_
"And thereat the whole assembly would start off into frenzies of applause, and fifty or sixty voices would repeat in chorus the sacramental words that had just been pronounced separately."
The degree of absurdity to which a portion of society must have attained before such scenes as the above could become possible may serve as a commentary and an explanation to half the literature which flooded the stage and the press in France for the first six or eight years after the Revolution of 1830. However, to be just, we must, in extenuation of all these absurdities, cite one passage more from Mme. Ancelot's book, in which, in one respect, at all events, the youth of twenty years ago in Paris are shown to have been superior to the youth of the present day.
"Nodier's parties were extremely amusing," says our authoress; "his charming daughter was the life of the whole; she drew around her young girls of her own age; poets, musicians, painters, young and joyous as these, were their partners in the dance, and every one was full of hope and dreaming of glory. But what brought all the light-heartedness, all the enthusiasm, all the exultation to its utmost height was, that, in all that youth, so trusting and so hopeful, _no one gave a single thought to money!_"
Assuredly, it would be impossible to say as much nowadays.
Taken as a whole, Mme. Ancelot's little volume is, as we said, an amusing and an instructive one. It is not so from any portion of her own individuality she has infused into it, but, on the contrary, from the entire sincerity with which it mirrors other people. We recommend it to our readers, for it is a record of Paris society in its successive transformations from 1789 to 1848, and paints a class of people and a situation of things, equally true types whereof may possibly not be observable in future times.
Footnote 1: _Les Salons de Paris.--Foyers Eteints_. Par Mme. Ancelot. 12mo. Paris.
Footnote 2: It will be remembered that on field-days Murat had adopted a hat and feathers of a most ridiculous kind, and that have become proverbial.
A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS
Othere, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth, Which he held in his brown right hand.
His figure was tall and stately, Like a boy's his eye appeared; His hair was yellow as hay, But threads of a silvery gray Gleamed in his tawny beard.
Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the color of oak; With a kind of laugh in his speech, Like the sea-tide on a beach, As unto the King he spoke.