High life in France under the republic; social & satirical sketches in Paris & the provinces.

Front matter

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Contents

HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE.

CHAP.

I. — BLUE-BLOODS AND UPSTARTS .

Chapter I. Blue-bloods And Upsta11ts

Monsieur le Due Dagobert de Sangbleu is a very noble young man, who owns not less than £8,000 a year, and makes this income look much bigger by calling it two hundred thousand livres. He is “ emancipated,” which is the correct term for conveying that his parents have ceased to grace this earth ; and he has attained his “ grand majority,” which means that, being five and-twenty years old, he can marry without any other formality than that of obtaining the consent of his grandfather and grandmother, or, failing such consent, of addressing to these venerable relatives three “ respectful summonses ” through a lawyer. All the world is aware that if at the third respectful summons the grandfather and grandmother of M. de Sangbleu declined to relent, the Duke might marry without them, which does not prove, however, that these summonses are useless, for each of them brings a fee of fifty francs to the lawyer. We may be quite certain, though, that M. de Sangbleu will never do anything without the permission of his grandfather, for he is most exemplary in his works, having been admirably trained by a reverend tutor of the Society of Jesus in all the principles of three centuries ago.

HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE.

At nineteen he shed the blood of Garibaldians at Mentana, earning the Pope’s blessing and the Cross of St. Sylvester ; in the Franco-German war he fought under Charette on the Loire, helped to put down tlie Commune, and received two severe wounds, one in the leg, the other in his most cherished hopes, for he had trusted that in cutting down M. Delescluze and Co. he was aiding to restore Henri V. Subsequently M. de Sangbleu performed the pilgrimage to Lourdes, and set a fine pattern to a thankless age by carrying a lighted taper of five pounds’ weight in a chanting procession. This was proper enough as no one will gainsay ; but what would M. de Sangbleu’s more immediate ancestors have thought, could they have walked out of their frames at the Chateau de Tourmoisie, and have seen their promising young descendant ?

It has become a harmless fallacy to suppose that the prerevolutionary nobles were devout Churchmen every one, and M. de Sangbleu guilelessly encourages this notion when he talks, as he often does, of the piety of his forefathers. He is fain to forget the cheerful atheism of those who actually knew Voltaire and his friends D’Alembert, Diderot, and Grimm. The three or four Dues de Sangbleu who danced through the eighteenth century in the train of Philip of Orleans, Louis XV., Madame de Pompadour, and Madame du Barry, were men who set light store by bishops. They had known that precious Cardinal Dubois, and Cardinal Fleury, the Prime Minister who was ruled by a lady spoken of by the whole Court as “ Madame la Cardinal ; ” then Dillon, Bishop of Evreux, who kept a hundred and fifty hunting horses in his stables and became bankrupt for ten million livres ; and Cardinal Louis de Bohan again, Archbishop of Strasburg and the hero of the Hecklace business ; and those two serviceable Bishops of Sens and Poictiers who waited on Madame de Pompadour at her early levees, and -on a certain memorable occasion knelt down, amid the tittering of pages and chamberlains, and helped her to put on her slippers.

As to the Dues de Sangbleu of Louis XIY.’s and Louis XIII.’s

BLUE-BLOODS AND UPSTARTS.

reigns, they were doubtless a trifle more devout than those who hob-nobbed with the above-named holy men ; but even in their day earnest religiousness was not deemed in very good taste at Versailles — it smacked of Molinism or Jansenism or downright Protestantism ; so that one must go back to the era of the League to find a Sangbleu who really cared much about the Faith. This mention of the Due de Sangbleu’s ancestors will show that he is an authentic nobleman of ancient lineage, which is more than many a titled Frenchman could prove, if requested to establish his right to the high-sounding appellation he is known by. It is notorious that there are upwards of a hundred thousand Frenchmen bearing titles, and more than three hundred thousand others who put themselves in the genitive case by means of the coveted prefix “ de” Now it is well-known that his lamented Majesty Louis XIV. created Dukes by the batch and Counts by the gross ; and that Louis XV. empowered Mesdames de Mailly, de Pompadour, and du Barry — his confidential advisers— to confer Marquisates on all who could pay fitly for those high-class dainties. Napoleon I. also raised up a crop of Dukes, Counts, and Barons, who have fructified abundantly ; but, after all, under Louis XIV. it required land to earn a title, under Louis XV. money, and under the First Napoleon merit ; and land, money, and merit have ever been rare enough. In their turn their Majesties, the pear-headed Citizen King, and the last of the Emperors, lavishly granted titles in reward of military and political services,* but we still stand puzzled in face of such a formidable total as 101,726 titles, and 300,000 de's, especially remembering the numerous wars which have drained France

* The First Napoleon created 9 Princes, 32 Dukes, 388 Counts, and 1,090 Barons. The government of the Restoration (Louis XVIII. and Charles X.), granted the necessary “patents” for 70 Dukes, 70 Marquises, 63 Counts, 62 Viscounts, and 215 Barons, besides issuing 785 “letters of simple nobility.” Under Louis Philippe, France was blessed with 3 more Dukes, 19 Counts, 17 Viscounts, and 59 Barons ; and during the Second Empire the aristocratic element was still further reinforced by the creation of 12 Dukes, 19 Counts or Viscounts, and 21 Barons. In addition, 368 persons were authorised to assume the genitive prefix

HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE.

during the last two centuries, and the wholesale guillotinings, shootings, and drownings of the Reign of Terror.

As a matter of fact, looking at the case literally, the authentic nobility of France, which Monsieur le . Due Dagobert de Sangbleu belongs to, reckons some 30,000 scions, whereof the majority date their origin from the Crusades, but whereof three Princes, seven Dukes, eleven Marquises, and twenty-five Counts only can prove their creations from before the 17th century. However, if any French noble object to finding himself omitted from the above roll of forty-six, he can get out of the scrape by averring that his family parchments were burned during the Revolution. A great many have so averred, and nothing was more touching than to see the number of waiting noblemen who turned up after the Revolution with the story that they were emigres and had lost their letters-patent through the burning of castles which no one recollected the existence of.

These neo-magnates stood towards the nobles who had notoriously flourished before 1789 in the proportion of about five to one ; and their uprising reminds one of the wondrous blossoming of Russian Princes and Counts which took place after the death of Ivan the Terrible, who wishing to abolish nobility, had ordered all his nobles to deliver up their parchments that they might be burned. When Ivan died, his successor, Fedor, revoked his decree, with this result, that all the sons and cousins of the Counts and Princes whose parchments had been burned, assumed the titles which belonged to the heads of their families ; and it is from this date that the practice of titling all the sons and grandsons of Russian Princes and Counts took root. In like manner, it was . after the Revolution that younger sons in France began affectionately to usurp the titles of their elders. Formerly the younger sons of all nobles below the rank of Duke bore — save under exceptional patent — the style of ££ Chevalier ; ” but in the present century we have seen Marquises of “ elder branch,” “ younger branch,” and “ cross branch,” with coats-of-arms and fantastic qnarterings which would make any herald weep.

BLUE-BLOODS AND UPSTARTS.

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“ That’s what comes of equality!” remarked Louis XVIII. drily, when the Due de Richelieu gently broke to him that there were somehow five or six times more nobles in the country than there had been before his Majesty fled to Coblentz ; and he added “ II faudra aviser.” But on second thoughts it was decided not to “ aviser,” for the restored Bourbons were in sore need of friends, and as all the self-dubbed nobles called themselves keen Legitimists, and were many of them wealthy folk, it was thought imprudent to anger them. As for what occurred under Louis Philippe we have only to glance at M. Guizot’s Memoirs to learn how every enriched merchant bravely usurped the title of the estate he had purchased ; the King complacently winking at these usurpations in order to swamp the true nobility who were hostile to him.

Napoleon III. at first tried to cope with this custom which had become an established usage by the time he seized on the throne, but he, too, was in need of friends, and it would not have been worth his while to inquire minutely into the pedigrees of influential landholders. Besides, le pli etait pris, as the French gracefully say. It had grown into a tradition that certain posts — especially those in the diplomatic service, the prefectoral hierarchy, the army staff, and the higher commands in the navy — could not be filled with proper prestige unless the titulant were a nobleman ; so that the Emperor, in his turn, took to creating Dukes and Counts, Viscounts and Barons, whilst self-ennoblings were conducted on a grander scale than ever.

Well may M. de Sangbleu and his friends, the authentic nobles, bewail the comparative facility of these usurpations. But, after all, what was to prevent M. Duval, born in or owning a piece of land near the village of Faublason, from describing himself on his address cards as “ Duval (de Faublason) ” to distinguish himself from the Duvals in other parts of the country ? Duval is a common name, and even government officials might be pleased to know that they wTere talking to the Duval who came from Faublason, and not with the Duval from Faumanoir or the one

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from Faufcoupet, both prominent men likewise. ■ Moreover, the fact that “ de Fanblason ” was printed in parentheses, prevented its being an nsnrpation.

But eventually a day came when Duval, having prospered in his affairs, obtained the Legion of Honour, or secured some post under Government, or was elected Councillor-General in his Department, or Mayor in his Commune, in any of which events his name had to figure in the Official. Then was the time when Duval, grown glorious, first dropped the parentheses and got himself without difficulty gazetted as Duval de Fanblason, for though certificates of birth are required for small clerkships, a man who attains higher honours may have himself printed by what name he chooses. A nomination in the Offxiel is, however, equivalent to a registered deed, so that from the day when Duval was gazetted as Fanblason he might sign himself by that name thenceforth and defy mankind. The mayor of his town might object that as Faublason’s fathers were Duvals, he himself ought to sign Duval in documents to be legalised ; but if the mayor wished to enforce his objection, he would have to appeal to the Ministry of Justice, and he was not likely to do this for the mere pleasure of quarrelling with a man who was prosperous and on good terms with the higher powers.

Thus M. Duval and men of similar ambition contrived to assume aristocratic names, and ere long, either at their wife’s instigation, or pushed by their own vanity, many of them donned coronets of various ranks. If they rose high in finance, they called themselves Barons, if they were returned deputies, they be-Count-ed themselves, and if they entered the diplomatic service, nothing less than Marquisates satisfied them. After this nothing more was required but that their children should look down proudly upon the lesser race of men, and talk of then ancestral allegiance to the Bourbons and the white flag — feats which they were in the habit of performing so conscientiously as to hoax even themselves into the belief that the impious Revolution of 1789 inflicted an ineffaceable wrong on their progenitors. From nobles of this

BLUE-BLOODS AND 'UPSTARTS.

stamp the Due Dagobert de Sangbleu keeps aloof, that is, as far as practicable, for your upstart patrician is often gifted with sufficient power of intrigue to edge his way into good society.

M. de Sangbleu, as becomes a gentilhomme of his ancient lineage, is extremely dignified. His shirt-collars are stiffer than those of any other young man of his age ; his studs and sleeve-links are emblazoned wfith lilies, and he wears a tuft on his chin (not an iw/periale , but a royale — there is a vital difference of half an inch between the two) because the late lamented Louis XIV. did so. You have only to glance at M. de Sangbleu as he stands smoking his pink, after-dinner cigarette in the dining-room of his mansion in the Champs Elysees — where he lives for the cogent reason that his ancestral residence in the Faubourg St. Germain was burned down by the Communists — to guess that here is a young magnate who could never have been taught Euclid by demonstration, but only by a process of courteous affirmatives. Thus his tutor could never have said to him, “ Monsieur le Due, I will prove to you that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.” He would have said : “ Monsieur le Due, I give you my w’ord of honour that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; ” and to this young M. de Sangbleu would have nobly answered, “ I cannot see, sir, that anything is impossible to a man of courage who invokes the aid of Providence ; but the moment you pledge your honour to this fact that is sufficient.” Happy they who in these unholy times can thus subordinate the material sophistries of logic to the higher dictates of the soul !

But devout and dignified as the Duke may be, he is not averse to pleasure ; and indeed, the Parisian season having just commenced, he has come to the capital to spend his winter in fashionable but not reckless amusement. This very evening he proposes attending a reception given by one of the leaders of the Royalist party, and as it is already nine o’clock, he throws down his pink cigarette and prepares for departure.

A two-horse brougham with its lamps aglow grates on the gravel sweep outside ; the house-door opens, a major-domo steps

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down with a fur rug followed by a groom with a carpeted hot-water can, and in another minute M. de Sangbleu himself emerges, grandly swathed in a cloak of black Russian fox-skin. He ensconces himself on the springy blue cushions of the carriage, the hot water apparatus is pushed under his feet, and the footman scrambles on to the box, and gives the coachman the address.

The Duke’s horses are fleet and his brougham is a miracle of lightness, such as only a French coachmaker could devise. Dark blue panels, with not an ounce of brass or loud colour about them — for even the door-handles are of black leather, and the coroneted ’scutcheon is painted of a blue but one shade fainter than the ground — then, light springs, clean whisking wheels, and a compact box, so that there is not a fault to be found with the turn-out — save perhaps that the French footman is uncommonly small, and the English coachman of life-guard size, which makes the pair look like a comma and a point of exclamation side by side — but then “ nothing here below is perfect.”

If any exception were to be made to that familiar axiom, it would assuredly be in favour of M. de Sangbleu’s evening attire. The English, it may be granted, know best how to dress in the daytime, but Frenchmen decidedly shoot ahead of them in the night season. A tasteful Frenchman’s dress-coat is a whole symphony in cloth. It has no creases or twists, no discord in its universal harmony ; and the little slip of red ribbon which knights like M. de Sangbleu are privileged to wear for their war deeds, shows better on it than an eighteen-pennyworth of flowers. Then when a Frenchman boasts £8,000 a year, and knows that all the ladies in the room — especially the unmarried ones— are alive to the fact and deeply appreciate it, he soars above the earth in that dress-coat of his, and becomes semi-godlike — bright, fascinating, a fountain of small-talk.

The Royalist reception is at its height, when M. de Sangbleu’s name is announced ; and now watch the entrance of this polished young Frenchman into the drawing-room, his unembarrassed gait, and perfect manner of bowing. Bowing is mentioned advisedly,

BLUE-BLOODS AND UPSTARTS.

for at the entertainments of the grand monde graceless fingergrasping which converts a gallant man’s arm into a pump-handle is happily dispensed with. There is no flagging of words in a French drawing-room, for guests of one host are supposed all to know one another and to be sociable without introductions. So when M. de Sangbleu has saluted his host and hostess, and inveighed during five minutes against the doctrines of material philosophy in company with a prelate, who speaks like a wellbound missal, he glides among a troop of bravely garrulous politicians, from among whom he slips in due time, much refreshed, into a vortex of ladies, where he is detained, made much of, and declared the paragon of young men. So much so, in truth, that when the reception is over, one weighty Royalist personage says to another, " That young Due de Sangbleu would be just the man to contest his Department against the Republican candidate, at the next election.”

“ Yes,” answers the other, “ and I’ll write to our friends about it. Sangbleu is one of those iron youths of old France who are phenomena in these degenerate days. He won’t reach his home till two, yet he will be out at ten to-morrow with the Chantilly hounds.”

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Chapter II. The Chantilly Hounds

Paris is a habitable place from four in the afternoon until the same hour past midnight, but it provides no amusement for one’s mornings. A man cannot ride in the Bois at midday, for he would ride in solitude ; he cannot play at the old national game of tennis, for public jeux depamm have ceased to exist ; as for cricket, rackets, football, and polo, no true Frenchman of these days will ever take kindly to such sports, which blister the hand and bruise the shin-bone. Nevertheless, to Frenchmen who have passed their youth in the country, deriving periodical excitement from a day’s march after a brace of partridges, or from a hunt after a wolf, escorted by all the rabble doggery of their estates, Parisian mornings are apt to seem dull. Hardy Franks of this sort do not care to imitate the petits creves of the Second Empire who remained in bed till twelve, breakfasted till two, smoked till four, and turned into the Bois at five looking healthy as wafers. They want movement for their generous blood, bracing for their strong nerves ; and it was an unmixed blessing to them when his Royal Highness the Due d’Aumale returned from exile and started the Chantilly staghounds.

Of course the Due Dagobert de Sangbleu is a member of the Chantilly Hunt and so is his intimate friend, M. Pistache. Every Duke with 200,000 livres a year must have about him a M. Pistache, who is not a dependant though, for he has a fine income of 20,000 livres all his own, but a deferential admirer, sworn associate and henchman, having all the fidelity, tact, and good-

THE CHANTILLY HOUNDS.

humour of a true poodle. M. de Sangbleu is Royalist and Catholic to his heart’s core, but quietly so ; M. Pistache feels bound to give tongue about his Legitimist opinions whenever he has the chance — else what is the use of opinions ? M. de Sangbleu, again, is ready to admit that in these sorry times one must make certain concessions to popular prejudices ; but M. Pistache, being descended from a glorious family of wig-makers, protests against all concessions, and will never sleep happy till his friend Sangbleu is restored to the full exercise of feudal prerogatives. Such zeal goes not unrewarded, and the Duke, frequently patting his worshipper’s shoulder, exclaims, “ Ce brave Pistache ! ”

Now behold the brave Pistache and his Duke both rolling together in the latter’s brougham at 8.30 a.m. towards the Northern Railway, en route for Chantilly. They are arrayed in scarlet, with buckskins, boots, hunting whips, and white gloves, but they do not look like English fox-hunters, for this is what happened one day at M. de Sangbleu’s tailor’s. When the Duke had ordered his complete hunting suit a VAnglaise , the tailor rubbed his head and said, ‘‘Why d VAnglaise , Monsieur le Due ? The English put on a red coat and cover their heads with a chimney-pot, which is heresy. Why not the skirted coat a la Frangaise , the three-cornered hat, gilt-handled dirk, and yellow buckskins, all of which look striking and are cavalier-like ? ” There was no gainsaying this, so M. de Sangbleu and M. Pistache each wear a short cutlass round their middle and a fluffy border of white plumes above the gold lace of their head-dresses. The other cavaliers or sportsmen whom we find at the Northern Railway encumbering the waiting-rooms are like them, and a grand show they make accosting one another with inquiries about the wind and hobnobbing the cups of their silver flasks for luck’s sake.

The muster does not seem to excite much attention from ordinary passengers, for the Chantilly meets are frequent, and everybody— including the station porters — has got accustomed to them. Only when a couple of pretty Amazons appear wearing

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the three-cornered hat like the gentlemen and three rows of the Chantilly “button” on their habits — only then is there a slight surge of curiosity from humdrum folk taking tickets for Picardy. But the Amazons quickly flit by trooped after by their flock of attendant cavaliers, and the glass doors of the waiting-room close behind them.

Another minute and the opposite doors leading to the platform slip back in their grooves, the whole scarlet flood breaks forth precipitously as if the stag were already in sight, and each valiant sportsman tries to scramble into the saloons of the special train, or to assist the ladies to mount therein without getting his dirk between his legs. There is always hurry in the movements of Frenchmen, but it is a genial hurry, full of smiles, cigar-smoke, and mutual courtesy. Settled in their saloons, all the men start up, crane their heads out of the windows in couples, and wonder why the train does not start. When it does start they say “Ah !” and blame the administration in a chorus for being always behindhand; then fall to pronouncing English sporting terms like merry but weak-toothed people cracking nuts. This is indis - pensable on such occasions, and that Frenchman earns admiration who can produce a London paper and read out the sporting quotations in the vernacular, or who, like M. de Sangbleu, can fasten upon an Englishman from the British Embassy and keep up an easy conversation beginning with the classic phrase, “ He makes finer this morning than yesterday, sir.”

M. Pistache does not speak English, and is fain to follow his friend’s exploits without sharing them. Once upon a time he did visit Britain, and even hoped to master the language of the natives ; but it is painful to state that he fell in with a schoolboy who hoaxed him as to the conjugation of the verbs. Said this boy : “ The verb to go is the easiest of all, Mossoo : — I go, you dance, he walks ; we run, you hook it, they bolt.” How, M. Pistache, having found difficulties enough in his French verbs, decided he would not worry himself further with a language so constructed.

THE CHANTILLY HOUNDS.

Chantilly was the house of the Condes, and of that much more popular man, the cook Yatel ; and where is the French sportsman who is not proud of its giant stables for two hundred horses, its matchless racecourse, and model pack ? But the place is more or less an English colony peopled with a bandy-legged race of grooms, rough riders, and budding jockeys, a very cavalcade ot whom are drawn up outside the station waiting for the Paris train. M. dc Sangbleu, like most members of the hunt, baits his hunters by jirivate arrangement at the Due d’Aumale’s, and his steed is a black one, sixteen hands high, with no fault but the very French one of rushing at a puddle as if it were a fence and at a fence as if it were a puddle. M. Pistache, having loftier views in all things, climbs upon a roan a hand and a half taller than the Duke’s — though it is also M. de Sangbleu’s property — and this animal cannons against half a dozen other horses at starting, kicks at a dog, and ambles off sideways over three miles of road, M. Pistache being utterly unable to put him straight till he reins him in at the meet, which is the “ Stone Table ” — a sort of rock -slab in mid-forest.

Some sixty horsemen soon assemble here, with the Due d’Aumale and the Due de Nemours in their midst — the former straight and iron-like, as if he sniffed Bedouins in the wind ; the latter an exact copy of Henri IY. exhumed from St. Denis for a day’s sport. As a matter of course M. Qniclet, “ captain of the hunt,” and the aged Plourvari, the renowned head piqueur, are also in attendance. There is a great deal of tooting on French horns, for anything like true sport would be impossible without it ; and the thirty couples of stag-hounds held together in leashes of six by blue-and-silver liveried under piqueurs, who slope backwards at an angle of forty-five in their efforts to restrain them, bark, yelp, and tug in a manner that is quite exhilarating. So, at least, thinks M. Pistache, who cannot understand, however, why these dogs should not be allowed to have their own way.

He is recalled to the merits of the question by a huntsman, who, galloping athwart everybody, rends the atmosphere right in

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twain with the braying of his horn — his mode of conveying that the stag was unearthed ten minutes ago, and, that " law ” being up, it is time to loose the hounds and lay them on the scent. It takes just half a minute to do this, and off goes the pack, with, howls which make the woods ring for two miles round.

Truly, an inspiriting sight. The sixty horsemen spread away for the start, the two pretty Amazons set their lips, a mob of peasants in blue blouses form a noisy fringeing to the phaetons and barouches which have come to see the throw-off, and conspicuous amidst all this we have M. Pistache’s roan, which, unable to stand the music of the horns, first jumps, then pivots on its hind legs, and then springs off like a shot, well-nigh wrenching M. Pistache’s arms out of their sockets. Happily, there are no fences ahead just at present. In the galloping scramble which follows, M. Pistache has time to see that his Duke and a squadron of others are drawing alongside of him, and that everybody is being borne along somehow at a furious pace towards the racecourse.

M. Pistache knows the racecourse, but it looks much nearer than it really is, for a clump of trees has to be passed, then a road, then a turnip-field, and at last, most trying of predicaments, a ditch full of mud. Pounding through the trees, M. Pistache claps his hand to his hat, and, fearing for the low branches, bends double over his saddle. At the road he feels himself a man again, and loses none of his nerve in the turnip-field ; but at the ditch he is aware that the eyes of the two Amazons and of five dozen of the flower of France are on him, so screams, “ Iloiip-ld /” as we should all of us do when we mean business, tosses both arms aloft like railway signals, and gets carried triumphantly over the obstacle, with his nose on the roan’s ears and both feet out of the stirrups.

All this time M. Pistache had seen nothing of tlie stag, nor of the hounds, who have tailed out of sight ; but glancing round as he kicks for his stirrups, he sees the grass pink with strewn compatriots, who have come to grief over that ditch, and the spectacle

THE CHANTILLY HOUNDS.