The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1888-06-27
WOMEN OF TWO NATIONS.
GIRLS WHO ARE CLOSELY GUARD
ED BY THEIR RELATIVES.
The French Girl OF Soeiety-The
Young Girl in Italian Society
NTaidenIy Freedom Restricted.

The French Girl OF Soeiety-The
Young Girl in Italian Society
MaidenIy Freedom Restricted.
In French homes, writes Grace Green
wood in the Chicago Herald, l have re-
marked certain quiet, orderly pro-
tessioh Of affairs, great apparent har-
mony, watchful father than doting pa
rental affection, and flial picty almost
out of fashion in our free and progress
sive country. French children are
usually un6btrysive and quantity grave,
natural and simple in their habits and
tastes, but hardly so in their manners,
which show marks of tutoring, and are
little too ceremonious. Nearly all
girls Of Catholic parents, not taught at
home by govetnosses and masters, are
educated in converts, rs pensionaires, or
as day scholars. In such institutions
they are severely drilled in the catechism
and in polite manners; in history, sac. ed
and pro fame; are taught Il little Of the
natural sciences and less of geography,
which, by the way, is the weak point
with most French people, for whom all
lands beyond their frontiers, especially
across alien seas, are resolved into hazy,
undetermined regions, inhabited princi-
pally by races more or less inferior and
barbaric. French girls are also good
arithmeticians, and are well instructed in
music, drawing and dancing.
Very young French girls are only
charming in a demure, shy way. They
all seem ingenious, and some are really
so. They are all light-hearted, and
many light-headed. They passionately
love amusements, and are easily amused
"a little pleasuring going a great way
with them. The wholesomest thing !
know about them is their Intense love
of the country and its simple avocations
and pastimes.
The French girl can hardly be said to
''come out" in society. She is brought
out and is never seen without her mother
or some other respectable and watchful
chaperon. Everything, to the last min
utip Of dress, is planned aud managed
for her. She is not supposed to have a
will or judgment of her own; least of all
in the matter of marriage. am speak
ing, of course, of the average French
girl of society. have known some eX
ceptions outside of Nine. Greville's
novels remarkably intelligent, in
dependent girls, whose hearts chose for
them, and whose hands were allowed to
90 with their hearts. But the average
mademoiselle modest and docile, usually
accepts the choice of her parents, with
out much ado-sometimes with alacrity.
In Italy the young girl of society can
hardly be said to be in society at all, so
hampered and fettered is she by the most
watchful, jealous, suspicious care and
surveillance. To walk alone, however
quietly and circumspectly, on a city
street were an act of startling rashness
and eccentricity, laying her open TO the
charge of having been contaminated by
English or American ideas and customs.
For her to walk, drive, ride or sail with
a familiar friend, of whatever age or
condition, but of the dangerous sex,
without a chaperon, would he to fatally
compromise herself. 1t is not even con
sidered the proper thing for her to attend
any place of amusement under the escort
solely of "big brother as all the world
might not know him for n brother. Her
education has been very like that of
her French sisters-perfunctory as to
history and the sciences, thorough as to
religious tenets, legends and obscrvanccs,
and as to polite accomplishments From
the hour of her betrothal to that of her
marriage the guard over her morals
and manners is redoubled, and such a
.Ihing as an unwitnessed tete.a.tete be-
tween her and her atiianccd husband is
not to be thought Of This i, the harder,
as the Italian maiden, being more ingen-
uous, romantic, and susceptible than the
French demoiselle is often really in love
with her tiance, and being less absorbed
in her trousseau, broods and frets more
under such unnatural restrictions.
AS for the beauty of Italian women
well, it seems to me that, like the cli-
mate, it must be taken II good deal on
faith; that either the poets and painters
have always exaggerated it, or the gods
have lately "gone back" on it. In the
north more comliness is found among the
country women, especially in complexion
and symmetry of form, than among the
arstocracy of cities. On first night -
at the Scala, when the aristocracy is out
in force, you can count the really hand
some women on the fingers Of one hand,
while you would have to nse all your
digits and borrow your neighbor's to
reckon up the rarely ugly.