Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-06-07
THE WOMAN OF PARIS
HOW SHE APPEARS TO AN ENGLISH.
MAN WHO KNOWS PARIS.

itan Who Has Seen Her In Her Various
and Changing Moods and Costumes-Her
Manners and Her Dress.
There is no woman in the world who is so
difficult to describe as the Parisenne, the
most inconsistent, paradoxical, unreason
able and altogether astonishing member oi
her sex. The poet Heine described her and
her sisters as the "comediennes ordinaires
du bon Dieu," which would sound blasphe
nous if translated into English. La Roche
foucauld and Montesquieu have both tried
their hands at portraying her, but without
success So, too, have Gavarni, Balzac and
Arsene Houssaye.
What renders it so difficult to portray or
describe the Parisiennc is that she is never
for two days together the same. Indeed
her great art may be said to consist in new
er resembling herself. She constitutes an
everlasting and Kaleidoscope succession of
netamorphoses, each one more startling
than the last, the consequence being that
no one can profess to know her character.
doubt If she even knows it herself or ever
dreams of studying it, for she is net the
kind of woman who wraps herself up In
her own thoughts. She lives neither for
the past nor for the future; her thoughts
are concentrated on the present. Unlike
the ordinary Frenchwoman, she has no
sense of economy and has no thought of the
morrow.
If one were to believe the Parisienne, one
would gather from her assertions that she
is the most economical of women. She is
invariably exclaiming that she spends lit
orally nothing True, she IS perfectly ready
to forego the necessaries as long rs she can
have the luxuries, and her sense Of the val
ue of money may be best illustrated by the
fact that when for the sake OF effccting
saving in expense she goes to the Hnlles
Centrales, or metropolitan market, for the
purpose OF buying half = pound of shrimps
or a couple of pounds of chops, she hires
carriage by the hour. When it is pointed
out to her that the money saved by buying
the chops ut the market is more than spent
in paying for the carriage, she replies that
she Is not rich enough to go on foot, since,
if she were to do SO, she would stop n al
most every shop on the way.
The Parisiclne is child of darkness
that is to say, she only begins really to live
toward dusk. At midnight she is at her
best. There Is "A great strain of Bohemian
ism in the Parisiennc which often becomes
apparent when she Is dispensing hospital
ity She is fond of receiving, even when
she has but little to offer In return. She
has not the faintcst idea how to make tea,
but she serves 1t with such grace In the
daintiest little cups Of Sevros, SAKE or Jap
anese porcelain and with such n captivat-
icatinG than the most fiery alcohol.
II she gives n dinner, she devotes far
more attention to the flowers and fruits
upon the table than TO the salmon or the
pheasant. Thedinner Is served anyhow,
and she passes off any hitch that may arise
with a witty remark which puts everybody
in good humor. The result is that every
one is content excepting herself on the
morrow when she makes up her accounts
with her cook-for be Parisienne has pre-
tensions to order even in the midst of dis
order.
While the Partisan himself is a thorough
going democrat, convinced that he Is the
equal. if not the superior, of every one OF
his fellow creatures, the Parisienne, on the
contrary, Is thoroughly aristocratic in her
ideas How could it be otherwise, and how
is it possible for her to believe in the doc
trines of equality as long as she has cook
and a femme de chambre at her command?
She infinitely prefers a prince to plebeian
in her salon, and unless man is either a
celebrity OF remarkably handsome, she
finds it difficult to forgive him for not hav-
ing been born what she considers gentle
man The Parisienne is not beautiful from
a sculptural or aesthetic point of view, but
she combines in her person what may be
described as the elementary features of al
most every known kind of beauty.
She has neither the distinctive signs OF
southern nor yet of northern birth, but
she reflects in her person at one and the
same time the reverberations of the arctic
snow and of the tropical sun. She may he
described as having the American eye, the
Spanish petulance, the Italian brio, the
Japanese grace, the English greediness and
the German tendency toward sentimental
| ism. Her beauty is what may be described
as the 'beaute du diablc,' but this particu.
lar form of beauty which lasts rarely long
fr,,.t tay. ynySD
vincials or foreigners is retained by the
Parisienne often for quarter of n century.
In church she has peculiar way of kneel
| ing, of raising her eyes to heaven and OF
| listening to the priest, which is enough to
tempt even St. Anthony. Perhaps the ex
PLANTATION of this may be found in the fact
| that the Parisienne, no matter what she
does is forever zen scene"
do not like to use the word posing
| for it would suggest too much the idea OF
| artificial pose. But she is always laying
| herself out for the gaze of others, and il
| people have the bad taste to neglect to look
| at her she looks at herself Her bedroom
| and toilet room, in fact all the rooms pc
| culiarly her own are adorned with a guam
| tity of mirrors, which enable her to see her
| self from every point of view, and if one
sees her with tress or lock of hair out OF
| place one may rest assured that she has in
| tentionally disarranged it for the purpose
| of concealing the fact that her attention is
| concentrated upon herself.
The Parisienne does not follow the fash
| ion She herself is the fashion, and she i:
consequently in accordance Herewith NJ
| matter what she does or what the extrav
| agances of her toilet When u provincial
or a foreigner passes along the boulevard
| she will invariably attract attention by thu
| newness of her dress The dress of thu
Parisienne, however, no matter II 1t has
| left the hand of the couturier but an houl
before, always looks as if it had alread,
been worn for day or two. The non