French men and French manners

Chapter I

French home-life — The mistake of EugUshmen and Americans with regard to the docility of French servants ; the cause of the error — French dwelling-houses — Fifty servants in one block of flats; their meeting-place — A preliminary glance at the concierge — The trained female servant a rarity in France — The French and English female servants in their own homes; their ambitions; their respective trainings — The French servant's ignorance of the social difference between herself and her employers — Cleanliness as understood in France — The appointments of the dinner-table — Hot water — Beauty, a marketable commodity — The heroine of Ouida's "Puck" — Menial service humiliating to most Frenchmen — Statistics in the streets of Paris — M. Aure'lien Scholl's views of female servants— Peasant-girls and peasant-girls— The painter of "I'Angelus" delivers an opinion — Zola's " La. Terre " an absolutely true picture of French peasant life — Taine's opinion — Pierre Larousse's " Dictionnaire " — Servants' wages — The kitchen — Baths — A sally of Nestor Roqueplan — The piano in the drawing-room; the concert in the kitchen — An anecdote— French Jeannette and English Jane — The cook and her perquisites

CHAPTER 11.

Home-life (continued) — The manservant more general in France than in England — The system is undergoing a gradual change in hotels and maisons meuhl^es, owing to the influx

252301 vi Contents.

of foreign, but especially English, visitors — The maison meuhl^e — The police and the maisons metihlees— The femme de manage — The concierge ; how she influences the whole of Paris home life — The concierge not the servant of the tenants^ The real and ideal French manservant — The frotteur — The concierge once more — Utterly unnecessary, if the French would but see it — The concierges as a married couple — Their duties — One's neighbours in a French house — ^Landlord and tenant — Various degrees of concierges — The salary of the concierge ; what she has to do for it — Her duties — Her children ... ... ... ... 23

Chapter III

The story of the Cardinal family according to M. Ludovic Hale'vy — Why I selected that story in illustration of my theme instead of a sketch of my own — The voucher for M. HaleVy's absolute truth with regard to that story — M. de Persigny at the Cardinals' — Madame Cardinal — Her daughters — M. Cardinal and his son-in-law de la main gauche — Virginie Cardinal falls in love — Madame Cardinal's proposed antidote — M. Cardinal's dignity — M. Cardinal's politics— My own experience in such matters ... ... 44

Chapter IV

The Cardinal-speculation and its basis— The French youth and his accredited mistress — The philosophy of '• Bebe" (Betsy) — The French public-school system and its attempt to counteract the evil — Humiliating surveillance — ^What the system really is— The uniform, and its effect upon the younger and elder pupils— The school and its discipline — The food— Recreation— The masters; the pion or usher in general — The attempts to introduce athletic sports — **Tom Brown's Schooldays" and "Jacques Vingtras"— The French schoolboy apparently more docile than the English; apparently only— The French schoolboy from a physical point — Results ... ... ... ... 50

Contents. vii

Chapter V. Page

A chapter on French girls — The ingenue — The demoiselle libre — Marriage from the divine and the philosopher's point of view; from the French point of view — The demoiselle libre and her absolute lack of illusion on the subject — Her attitude towards the fiance— H.qx appreciation of her father — Her choice between the poor aristocrat and the wealthy parvenu — "Arrive un troisieme" — The ingenue — Her education and training — Forbidden novels — The • education of girls — Their amusements — Courtship — M. le Pretendu — A proposed tax on bachelors ... ... 71

Chapter VI

A chapter on soldiering — The Frenchman's " love of country," as exemplified by his unreadiness " a soldier for to go " — Parricide to avoid military service — Frenchmen's courage — In abeyance in times of peace — Their manifold objections to soldiering — Some of their arguments — A French village in January and February — The conscript: his mother, his sisters, and his sweetheart — The day of drawing lots — Early mass — The journey to the market town — The Breton, the Southern Frenchman, the Alsacian, and the Parisian — Carlyle at fault in his saying, " Show me how a man sings, and I will tell you how he will fight" — The drawing of lots — The mise-en-8cene and the dramatis personse — Tricks and subterfuges to escape from military thraldom — Greek meets Greek — All chance of hoodwinking the authorities is gone — Horse soldier, foot soldier, or sailor — A word about sailors — Departure for the regiment ... ... ... 85

Chapter VII

The difficulties to be overcome by the reorganized French army — The refractory, so-called republican, element — The abolition of the one-year voluntary system — Those who grumble most — The volunteer takes things more cheerfully — What one year's service means to the professional young man at the outset of his career — What three years mean to the working vlii Contents.

PAGE

man or farm-labourer — The first day in barracks — The first bugle-call — Coflfee in bed — The recruit's new outfit — The first reveille — The regimental kitchen — The canteen and the cantiniere — Drill and theory — An American in the Foreign Legion — Comradeship — A glance at the barrack-room — Gravelotte, the dog of tlie regiment ... ... 107

Chapter VIII

The political raree-show — He would be a gentleman — Broulard junior at school — Broulard senior — How Broulard junior became an Imperialist — Why Broulard did not become a Royalist — An ambassador of the Republic— The Vicomto de Parabere-Craon — Parab^re takes me into his confidence — I write a pamphlet — The result — All's well that ends well — A saviour of the people — M. Theophile Mirandol — His martyrdom and earthly rewards ... ... ... 128

Chapter IX

An obscure heroine — How I met with her— How she got her living — I pay her a visit — She refuses assistance, and tells me the story of her life — Three generations of revolutionaries — Her death, burial, and gravestone ... ... ... 151

CHAPTER X. The Story of an Electoral Canvass ... ... ... ... 168

CHAPTER XL

Poverty-stricken Paris — Wretchedness in rags, wretchedness in a blouse, wretchedness in a black coat and chimney-pot hat — The working man the spoilt child of the Radical politician — A glimpse of the Government employe and the clerk in large industrial establishments — The clerk's wants and the workman's — The clerk's salary and the workman's pay — The clerk's family and the workman's — The positions compared— A glance at a " copying office " and its personnel — A true story — The general registry office for the unemployed — Attempted reform of the Paris Municipality ... ... 187

Contents. ix

Chapter XII. Page

Poverty-stricken Paris still — The paternal pawnshop, otlierwise " Le Mont de Piete' "—The English would-be philanthropist with regard to it — Parliamentary Commissions and their theoretical result— Tiie paternal pawnshop as it is — The impecunious Englishman face to face with "uncle;" the impecunious Frenchman face to face with "aunt" — Documentary evidence with regard to one's identity — The pawnshop as a borrower — Formalities — The valuation of property — To whom such valuation is left — Rate of interest, etc. — Illiuit traffic in pawn-tickets— Does the French pawnshop offer the best guarantee for the tracing and recovery of stolen property? — Proofs to the contrary — The tailors at the central pawnshop ... ... ... ... 212

CHAPTER Xlir.

Some curious inlustries — The commissionnaire — What he can do, what he cannot do — The commissionnaire as a shoeblack — Tlie commissionnaire as an aid to the police in an historical crime — The wool-carder — French and English bedding — Street cries — The professor — An interview with him — A page on the water supply of Paris in the past and in the present — The mender of taps and cisterns— The history of a great commercial genius — Bread crusts— A varnish for poultry — Stewed rabbit — Raspings ... ... ... 224

Chapter XIV

The manufacture of street arabs — A short preamble — The resources of the London street arab and those of the Paris one— The manufacturing of little angels — The Assistance Publique and illegitimate children — A trial for baby-farming — The French nurse — Whence she springs — Maternity a profitable speculation on her part — Some personal experiences ... ... ... ... ... 254

X Co7itents,

Chapter XV. Page

Idle days — The rag-gatherers and M. Poubelle eleven years ago — The extra-mural lieadquarters of the Paris rag-gatherers — The Route de la Re'volte — A bit of history — To explore Paris, no disguise is necessary — Papa Alexandre — A conversation with him — An anecdote of the Cite Foucault — Papa Alexandre offers to do me a good turn — The Villa Cobain and Madame Plancard — Papa Beresina — The statement of a young rag-gatherer ... ... .., ... 270

Chapter XVI

Idle days (continued) — Papa Alexandre takes me to "La Femme-en-Culottes " — The Paris beggar — Sham cripples — — Sham wounds — A too realistic painter — The swell beggar — The sham victim of political persecution — My experience of him — The Parisian's cleverness in obtaining special information ... ... ... ... ... ... 28'