The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1880-12-10
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life nj French watering Place

A correspondent in tho "London
Whitehall Review" thus describes
somo OF tho aspects of life at Etretat,
the French watering place.
As may he readily surmised from
what we have said, life at Etretat is of
the most free-and-easy description. One
can do exactly rs one pleases OF Etretat,
and we mean this literally. There are
people of every conceivable walk in life
there; but they are none of them prudes
or sticklers for etiquette, and, pro-
vided one keeps partially clothed, there
is absolutely no limit to the license one
may indulge in. Artists are proverbially
an easy-going race of beings, and, as the
artist element is predominant at Etretat,
the general tone of the place is the
easiest of any easy-go ever yet
invented. Men lounge in to dinner
in rough light coats, without ever
dreaming of washing their hands be-
fore meat, and the frailer sex follow
suit. Breakfast and dinner are served
at the Blanquet and Hauville in low
ceiling rooms, resembling the cabin Of
ship and smelling of artistic ii. e. un-
washed) humanity, bilge water, soiled
napkins, kitchen and cider There is
no other place, however, in the town
must grin and bear it, and endeavor to
while away the time not unproftably
by studying the curious types around
one. Let us be your guide and mentor.
That quiet, wan-looking woman op-
posite to you is the famous American
circus rider, Franconi's great star, to
whom he paid 800 week during her
engagement at the Cirque d'Ete. The
bearded man next to her, who has eyes
as soft and beautiful as those of O
gazelle, who has Just announced that he is
forced to remove his boots this is fact)
because he suffers so from corns that
it takes away his appetite, is the great
est tenor in France and ono of the best
natured men in Europe, who, although
he can always command his $4,000 a
week in London, prefers spending his
money playing ecarte to dressing and
living like q Christian. The pretty
young girl next him is Miss Libitian
Cocytus, whose refreshing three volumed
novels are always so much in demand at
Nudes and who has come to recuperate
at Etretat; and here is Ausonius Bite,
whose lyric eccentricties are the de-
light of the high table at Oxford. As
ugly as Miss Cocytus is dainty and fair,
one wonders whore the poet can posi-
bly, have gained the experience neces-
saTy for the fabrication of his amorous
ditties.
The man to your right, with the red
beard and bright, twinkling eyes, who
is now wiping his knife on his bread,
and thus preparing for the next course,
is one of the greatest modern COM
posers of France, and one who can set
love to music as no other maestro ever
yet could do. The female to your left
is the widow of the wig-maker by spe-
cial appointment to Comedie franchise,
and next to her is the chief de lorchestre
of the Varieties. The two benevolent
looking old gentlemen with napkins
tied around their necks, who only pause
in an exciting discussion to gnaw at
chicken bone or lick the last drop of
gravy off the fork, are both Academicians
and both officers of the legion of honor
tho one an eminent historian and the
other no less eminent novelist. They
are both most charming men, except
when eating, an operation during which
it were better for most Frenchmen to
escape unobserved.