France

Front matter

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FRANCE.

Preface

I offer the following work to public notice, with feelings of great intimidation and distrust. To an undertaking, at once arduous and delicate, I have brought none % of those advantages most favourable to the mechanism of authorship; and in a series of narrated observations, over whose dryness the graces of fiction shed no extraneous charm, I have unavoidably been denied the time for leisurely composition. For it was necessary, from the nature of the work (intended to reflect the changeful images of the day, and in their true character and colouring,

" To catch, if I could, the Cynthias of the minute),"

to preserve the passing fact in the strength of its original occurrence: to forestall anecdote and anticipate detail, ere the rapid current of public events should force them through the various channels of society, and lessen their value by extending their circulation.

Starting from the post with many abler competitors, my object was, if possible, to distance those by time, if I could not rival them in skill, and, in my effort to clear the ground, and to arrive first at the goal, I fear I have attained my end with more celerity than grace.

The following pages have been composed between the months of November and March, from the heads of a journal, kept with regularity during my residence in France, in the year 1816: and having bound myself

VI PREFACE.

to my publisher to be ready for the press before April,* I was obliged to compose a trait de plume, to send off the sheets chapter by chapter, without the power of detecting repetitions by comparison, and without the hope of correction from the perusal of proof sheets. Publishing in one country, and residing in another, it was not to be expected that the press would wait upon th chances of wind and tide, for returns either in or out of course.

To the inaccuracies of haste, a fault less excusable has been added; I mean the frequent recurrence of French sentences and dialogues, which break up and disfigure the text; a fault which arose from my anxiety to give impressions with all the warmth and vigour with which I received them; to preserve the form with the spirit ; to repeat the jargon of the court, or the cottage, the well-turned point of the dutchess, or the patois of the peasant, as I caught and took them down de vive voix in my tablets, or retained and recorded them in my journal. While I thus endeavour to account for faults, I cannot excuse; and to solicit the indulgence of that public from whom I have never experienced severity, I make no effort to deprecate professional criticism, because I indulge no hope from its mercy. There is one review, at least, which must necessarily place me under the ban of its condemnation; and to which the sentiments and principles scattered through the following pages (though conceived and expressed in feelings the most remote from those of local or party policy) will afford an abundant source of accusation,

* The subsequent May, equally injurious to the interest of the work, and to the reputation of the author, rests entirely with the publisher.

PREFACE. Vll

as being foreign to its own narrow doctrines, and opposed to its own exclusive creed. I mean the Quarterly Review. It may look like presumption to hope, or even to fear its notice; but I, at least, know by experience, that in the omniscience of its judgment it can stoop

" To break a butterfly upon a wheel."

It is now nearly nine years since that review selected me as an example of its unsparing severity; and; deviating from the true object of criticism, made its strictures upon one of the most hastily composed and insignificant of my early works a vehicle for an unprovoked and wanton attack upon the personal character and principles of the author. The slander thus hurled against a young and unprotected female, struggling in a path of no ordinary industry and effort, for purposes sanctified by the most sacred feelings of nature, happily fell hurtless. The public of an enlightened age, indulgent to the critical errors of pages composed for its amusement, under circumstances, not of vanity or choice, but of mcessity, has by its countenance and favour, acquitted me of those charges under which I was summoned before their awful tribunal, and which tended to banish the accused from society, and her works from circulation: for "licentiousness, profligacy, irreverence, blasphemy, libertinism, disloyalty, and atheism/ 5 were no venial errors. Placed by that public in a definite rank among authors, and in no undistinguished circle Sf society, alike as woman and as author, beyond the injury of malignant scurrility, whatever form it may assume, I would point out to those who have yet to struggle through the arduous

Vlll PREFACE.

and painful career that I have ran, the feebleness of unmerited calumny, and encourage those who receive with patience and resignation the awards of dignified and legitimate criticism, to disregard and contemn the anonymous slander with which party spirit arms its strictures, under the veil of literary justice.

In thus recurring to the severe chastisement which my early efforts received from the judgment of the Quarterly Review, it would be ungrateful to conceal that it placed

" My bane and antidote at once before me,"

and that in accusing me of " licentiousness, profligacy, irreverence, blasphemy, libertinism, disloyalty, and atheism," it presented a nostrum of universal efficacy, which was to transform my vices into virtues, and to render me, in its own words, " not indeed a good writer of novels, but a useful friend, a faithful ivife, a tender mother, and a respectable and happy mistress of a family"

To effect this purpose, " so devoutly to be wished," it prescribed a simple remedy: " To purchase immediately a spelling book, to which, in process of time, might be added a pocket dictionary, and to take a few lessons in joining-hand; which superadded to a little common sense, in place of idle raptures," were finally to render me Jthat valuable epitome of female excellence, whose price Solomon has declared above rubies.

While I denied the crJfhes thus administered to, I took the advice for the sake of its results; and like * Coelebs in search of a wife," with his ambulating virtues, I set forth with my Mavor and my Entick in

PREFACE. IX

search of that conjugal state, one of the necessary qualifications for my future excellencies. With my dictionary in my pocket, with my spelling book in one hand, and my copperplate improvements in the other, I entered my probation ; and have at last (thanks to the Quarterly Review) obtained the reward of my calligraphic and orthographic acquirements. As it foretold, I am become, in spite of the " seven deadly sins" it laid to my charge, " not indeed a good writer of novels," but, I trust, " a respectable," and, I am sure, " a happy mistress of a family."

In the fearful prophecy so long made, that I should never write a good novel, the Quarterly Review, in its benevolence, will at least not be displeased to learn that I have written some that have been successful] and that while my Glorvinas, Luximas, and Lolottes, have pleaded my cause at home, like " very Daniels" they have been received abroad with equal favour and indulgence; and that O'Donnel has been transmitted to its author in three different languages. Having thus^ I hope, settled " my long arrear of gratitude with Alonzo," I am now ready to begin a new scorce; and await the sentence of my quondam judge, in the spirit of one

"Who neither courts nor fears His favour nor his hate.

In a work which bears the sweeping title of c France/ (a title adopted by necessity, because none other was left me), it would be a strange solecism to omit all notice of the jurisprudence, medical science, and finance of that country; subjects connected with its most vital existence, but far beyond my limited sphere of inquiry,

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At rrry request, my husband has undertaken to furnish some sketches on these points, which form the pages of the appendix.

For the authenticity of the great mass of anecdotes with which I have endeavoured to relieve the weariness of narrative, I can no further vouch, than that I obtained" them from persons distinguished by their rank, talents, and high respectability; and that I give them in the saloon or the boudoir. I have omitted many that were doubtful, even though they w r ere amusing; and I have transcribed few that were not corroborated by persons of very different principles and interests. My object was to come at the truth, and I trust I have pretty generally succeeded.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Publisher feels himself called upon to state, that the delay which has taken place in the appearance of this work, has arisen, in the first place through the very illegible state in which the manuscript was transmitted to him, and which, therefore, required twice the usual time to print: Secondly, in consequence of the author undertaking (without success) to procure a French translator for the Paris edition, the advantages of which it was incumbent on the publisher to secure, in order to reimburse himself for the very large sum paid for copyright: and thirdly, by the author's wish to have the French translation published without any of the political passages being suppressed, a proceeding which the reader will immediately perceive would have caused the confiscation of the work by the French government.

Conduit Street, Hanover Square, June the 7th, 1817.

Book I. The Peasantry

The peasantry before the Revolution. — Condition of the Peasantry arising out of the Revolution. — The Labourers. — Farmers. — Small Proprietors. — Military Labourers. — Farmer of D'Orsonville. — Cottager of the Vallee of Dorsai. — Rural Economy. — Market day at Montreil.- Peasant Dwelling. — Morals. — Domestic Manners and Affections. — -Religion. — Religious Processions.— Popular Superstitions. — Diet, — -Hospitality. — Mendicity. — Charity. — Costume. — Physiognomy. — The Basque- Summary. ...... 1

Book II. Society

National Characteristics.— Sketch of Manners, before the Revolution. — During the Revolution.— Under the Imperial Government. — Actual State of Society and Manners, in France.— " The Children of the Revolution." — Royalists. — Ultra-Roy- - ahsts. — Constitutionalists, and Bonapartists. — Conversation. — Raconteurs. — Political Vaudevilles. — Tone of the Circle's. — French Youth. — The Eleve of the Polytechnic School. — Religious Institutions! — School of Ecouen. . .65

Book III. Society

Woman.—- Her former Influence, and actual Position in French Society. — National Characteristics.— Madame D'Houdetot. — Married Life. — Gallantry, Manners, Education.— Domestic Habits. — The Femme de Chambre. — Im Bonne. — Domestic Servitude.-^-The Toilette. — The Royal Trousseau, g .122

XIV CONTENTS.

Book IV. Paris

Habits of the Parisian Table. — Petits-Soupers. — Dejeuners a la fourchette. — Chateau de Plaisance. — Vincennes. — Chappelle expiatoi're. — Hospitality. — Dinners. — The Soiree. — The grande Reunion. — The Bal Pare. . . . . . .173

Book V.— Part II. Paris

Boulevards Italiens. — General Architectural Arrangement of Paris — Banks of the Seine. — The Hotel Bourbon. — The Louvre. — The Gallery. — Modern French Artists. — The Place de Carrousel. — The Thuilleries. — The Sorbonne. — The Pantheon. — Bibiiotheque du Pantheon. — The Luxembourg. — Bibiiotheque du Roi. — De Mazarin. — Librarians. — The Gobelins. — The Shop Signs. — Private Hotels. — Historical Scites. — Hotel de Beaumarchais — Hotel de la Regniere. — Aimanach des Gourmands. — Hotel de Sommariva. — Works of Can.ova.— Hotel de Craufurdo — Gallery of the Beauties of Louis XIV. — Hotel Borghese. — Hotel and Collection of Baron Denon. 1

Book VI. Paris

Street Population of Paris. — Industry. — Beggars. — Civilization of the Lower Orders. — Language. — Morals. — The Bourgeoisie. — The Sunday of a Parisian Shopkeeper. — The higher Classes of Citizens .49

Book VII. The French Theatre

The French Tragedy. — Racine. — The Theatre Francais. — Britannicus. — Talma. — St. Prix. — Style of Acting. — Of Enunciation. — Mademoiselle Duchesnois. — Mademoiselle George. — Costume. — A first Representation. — Charlemagne. — Mons. le Mercier. — La Fonde. — L'avocat Patelin. — French Comedy. — Moliere. — Tartuffe. — Mademoiselle Mars. — Mademoiselle le Vert. — Fleury. — Michaud. — The Audience. — The Odeon. — The Chevalier Canolle. — The Academie Royalc de Musique. — French Music. — Oedipe. — Devin du Village. — Influence of Ronaparte on the State of Music, in France. — Paesiello. — Cherubini — CimaTOsa. — Pair. — Blangmi. — Boieldieu. — Bcrton. — Lambert. — Mehul le Sueur. — The Court "Aeatre at the

CONTENTS. XV

Thuilleries. — Theatre des Vaudevilles. — Theatre des Varietes. — Brunet, Potier. — Theatre des Boulevards; — Sampson.— Joseph.— Sacrifice d' Abraham. — Pieces de circonstance. 62