Chapter 10
Paris is beginning to show signs of the coming "Exhibition of 1900," and is in many ways going through a curious stage of transformation, socially as well as materially. The _Palais De l'Industrie_, familiar to all visitors here, as the home of the _Salons_, the Horse Shows, and a thousand gay _fetes_ and merry-makings, is being torn down to make way for the new avenue leading, with the bridge Alexander III., from the Champs Elysees to the Esplanade des Invalides. This thoroughfare with the gilded dome of Napoleon's tomb to close its perspective is intended to be the feature of the coming "show."
Curious irony of things in this world! The _Palais De l'Industrie_ was intended to be the one permanent building of the exhibition of 1854. An old "Journal" I often read tells how the writer saw the long line of gilded coaches (borrowed from Versailles for the occasion), eight horses apiece, led by footmen--horses and men blazing in embroidered trappings--leave the Tuileries and proceed at a walk to the great gateway of the now disappearing palace. Victoria and Albert who were on an official visit to the Emperor were the first to alight; then Eugenie in the radiance of her perfect beauty stepped from the coach (sad omen!) that fifty years before had taken Josephine in tears to Malmaison.
It may interest some ladies to know how an Empress was dressed on that spring morning forty-four years ago. She wore rose-colored silk with an over-dress (I think that is what it is called) of black lace flounces, immense hoops, and a black _Chantilly_ lace shawl. Her hair, a brilliant golden auburn, was dressed low on the temples, covering the ears, and hung down her back in a gold net almost to her waist; at the extreme back of her head was placed a black and rose-colored bonnet; open "flowing" sleeves showed her bare arms, one-buttoned, straw-colored gloves, and ruby bracelets; she carried a tiny rose-colored parasol not a foot in diameter.
How England's great sovereign was dressed the writer of the journal does not so well remember, for in those days Eugenie was the cynosure of all eyes, and people rarely looked at anything else when they could get a glimpse of her lovely face.
It appears, however, that the Queen sported an India shawl, hoops, and a green bonnet, which was not particularly becoming to her red face. She and Napoleon entered the building first; the Empress (who was in delicate health) was carried in an open chair, with Prince Albert walking at her side, a marvellously handsome couple to follow the two dowdy little sovereigns who preceded them. The writer had by bribery succeeded in getting places in an _entresol_ window under the archway, and was greatly impressed to see those four great ones laughing and joking together over Eugenie's trouble in getting her hoops into the narrow chair!
What changes have come to that laughing group! Two are dead, one dying in exile and disgrace; and it would be hard to find in the two rheumatic old ladies whom one sees pottering about the Riviera now, any trace of those smiling wives. In France it is as if a tidal wave had swept over Napoleon's court. Only the old palace stood severely back from the Champs Elysees, as if guarding its souvenirs. The pick of the mason has brought down the proud gateway which its imperial builder fondly imagined was to last for ages. The Tuileries preceded it into oblivion. The Alpha and Omega of that gorgeous pageant of the fifties vanished like a mirage!
It is not here alone one finds Paris changing. A railway is being brought along the quais with its depot at the Invalides. Another is to find its terminus opposite the Louvre, where the picturesque ruin of the Cour des Comptes has stood half-hidden by the trees since 1870. A line of electric cars crosses the Rond Point, in spite of the opposition of all the neighborhood, anxious to keep, at least that fine perspective free from such desecration. And, last but not least, there is every prospect of an immense system of elevated railways being inaugurated in connection with the coming world's fair. The direction of this kind of improvement is entirely in the hands of the Municipal Council, and that body has become (here in Paris) extremely radical, not to say communistic; and takes pleasure in annoying the inhabitants of the richer quarters of the city, under pretext of improvements and facilities of circulation.
It is easy to see how strong the feeling is against the aristocratic class. Nor is it much to be wondered at! The aristocracy seem to try to make themselves unpopular. They detest the republic, which has shorn them of their splendor, and do everything in their power (socially and diplomatically their power is still great) to interfere with and frustrate the plans of the government. Only last year they seized an opportunity at the funerals of the Duchesse d'Alencon and the Duc d'Aumale to make a royalist manifestation of the most pronounced character. The young Duchesse d'Orleans was publicly spoken of and treated as the "Queen of France;" at the private receptions given during her stay in Paris the same ceremonial was observed as if she had been really on the throne. The young Duke, her husband, was not present, being in exile as a pretender, but armorial bearings of the "reigning family," as their followers insist on calling them, were hung around the Madeleine and on the funeral-cars of both the illustrious dead.
The government is singularly lenient to the aristocrats. If a poor man cries "Long live the Commune!" in the street, he is arrested. The police, however, stood quietly by and let a group of the old nobility shout "Long live the Queen!" as the train containing the young Duchesse d'Orleans moved out of the station. The secret of this leniency toward the "pretenders" to the throne, is that they are very little feared. If it amuses a set of wealthy people to play at holding a court, the strong government of the republic cares not one jot. The Orleans family have never been popular in France, and the young pretender's marriage to an Austrian Archduchess last year has not improved matters.
It is the fashion in the conservative Faubourg St. Germain, to ridicule the President, his wife and their bourgeois surroundings, as forty years ago the parents of these aristocrats affected to despise the imperial _parvenus_. The swells amused themselves during the official visit of the Emperor and Empress of Russia last year (which was gall and wormwood to them) by exaggerating and repeating all the small slips in etiquette that the President, an intelligent, but simple-mannered gentleman, was supposed to have made during the sojourn of his imperial guests.
Both M. and Mme. Faure are extremely popular with the people, and are heartily cheered whenever they are seen in public. The President is the despair of the lovers of routine and etiquette, walking in and out of his Palais of the Elysee, like a private individual, and breaking all rules and regulations. He is fond of riding, and jogs off to the Bois of a morning with no escort, and often of an evening drops in at the theatres in a casual way. The other night at the Francais he suddenly appeared in the _foyer des artistes_ (a beautiful greenroom, hung with historical portraits of great actors and actresses, one of the prides of the theatre) in this informal manner. Mme. Bartet, who happened to be there alone at the time, was so impressed at such an unprecedented event that she fainted, and the President had to run for water and help revive her. The next day he sent the great actress a beautiful vase of Sevres china, full of water, in souvenir.
To a lover of old things and old ways any changes in the Paris he has known and loved are a sad trial. Henri Drumont, in his delightful _Mon Vieux Paris_, deplores this modern mania for reform which has done such good work in the new quarters but should, he thinks, respect the historic streets and shady squares.
One naturally feels that the sights familiar in youth lose by being transformed and doubts the necessity of such improvements.
The Rome of my childhood is no more! Half of Cairo was ruthlessly transformed in sixty-five into a hideous caricature of modern Paris. Milan has been remodelled, each city losing in charm as it gained in convenience.
So far Paris has held her own. The spirit of the city has not been lost, as in the other capitals. The fair metropolis of France, in spite of many transformations, still holds her admirers with a dominating sway. She pours out for them a strong elixir that once tasted takes the flavor out of existence in other cities and makes her adorers, when in exile, thirst for another draught of the subtle nectar.
No. 25--Contentment
As the result of certain ideal standards adopted among us when this country was still in long clothes, a time when the equality of man was the new "fad" of many nations, and the prizes of life first came within the reach of those fortunate or unscrupulous enough to seize them, it became the fashion (and has remained so down to our day) to teach every little boy attending a village school to look upon himself as a possible future President, and to assume that every girl was preparing herself for the position of first lady in the land. This is very well in theory, and practice has shown that, as Napoleon said, "Every private may carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack." Alongside of the good such incentive may produce, it is only fair, however, to consider also how much harm may lie in this way of presenting life to a child's mind.
As a first result of such tall talking we find in America, more than in any other country, an inclination among all classes to leave the surroundings where they were born and bend their energies to struggling out of the position in life occupied by their parents. There are not wanting theorists who hold that this is a quality in a nation, and that it leads to great results. A proposition open to discussion.
It is doubtless satisfactory to designate first magistrates who have raised themselves from humble beginnings to that proud position, and there are times when it is proper to recall such achievements to the rising generation. But as youth is proverbially over-confident it might also be well to point out, without danger of discouraging our sanguine youngsters, that for one who has succeeded, about ten million confident American youths, full of ambition and lofty aims, have been obliged to content themselves with being honest men in humble positions, even as their fathers before them. A sad humiliation, I grant you, for a self- respecting citizen, to end life just where his father did; often the case, nevertheless, in this hard world, where so many fine qualities go unappreciated,--no societies having as yet been formed to seek out "mute, inglorious Miltons," and ask to crown them!
To descend abruptly from the sublime, to very near the ridiculous,--I had need last summer of a boy to go with a lady on a trap and help about the stable. So I applied to a friend's coachman, a hard-working Englishman, who was delighted to get the place for his nephew--an American-born boy--the child of a sister, in great need. As the boy's clothes were hardly presentable, a simple livery was made for him; from that moment he pined, and finally announced he was going to leave. In answer to my surprised inquiries, I discovered that a friend of his from the same tenement-house in which he had lived in New York had appeared in the village, and sooner than be seen in livery by his play-fellow he preferred abandoning his good place, the chance of being of aid to his mother, and learning an honorable way to earn his living. Remonstrances were in vain; to the wrath of his uncle, he departed. The boy had, at his school, heard so much about everybody being born equal and every American being a gentleman by right of inheritance, that he had taken himself seriously, and despised a position his uncle was proud to hold, preferring elegant leisure in his native tenement-house to the humiliation of a livery.
When at college I had rooms in a neat cottage owned by an American family. The father was a butcher, as were his sons. The only daughter was exceedingly pretty. The hard-worked mother conceived high hopes for this favorite child. She was sent to a boarding-school, from which she returned entirely unsettled for life, having learned little except to be ashamed of her parents and to play on the piano. One of these instruments of torture was bought, and a room fitted up as a parlor for the daughter's use. As the family were fairly well-to-do, she was allowed to dress out of all keeping with her parents' position, and, egged on by her mother, tried her best to marry a rich "student." Failing in this, she became discontented, unhappy, and finally there was a scandal, this poor victim of a false ambition going to swell the vast tide of a city's vice. With a sensible education, based on the idea that her father's trade was honorable and that her mission in life was to aid her mother in the daily work until she might marry and go to her husband, prepared by experience to cook his dinner and keep his house clean, and finally bring up her children to be honest men and women, this girl would have found a happy future waiting for her, and have been of some good in her humble way.
It is useless to multiply illustrations. One has but to look about him in this unsettled country of ours. The other day in front of my door the perennial ditch was being dug for some gas-pipe or other. Two of the gentlemen who had consented to do this labor wore frock-coats and top hats--or what had once been those articles of attire--instead of comfortable and appropriate overalls. Why? Because, like the stable- boy, to have worn any distinctive dress would have been in their minds to stamp themselves as belonging to an inferior class, and so interfered with their chances of representing this country later at the Court of St. James, or presiding over the Senate,--positions (to judge by their criticism of the present incumbents) they feel no doubt as to their ability to fill.
The same spirit pervades every trade. The youth who shaves me is not a barber; he has only accepted this position until he has time to do something better. The waiter who brings me my chop at a down-town restaurant would resign his place if he were requested to shave his flowing mustache, and is secretly studying law. I lose all patience with my countrymen as I think over it! Surely we are not such a race of snobs as not to recognize that a good barber is more to be respected than a poor lawyer; that, as a French saying goes, _Il n'y a pas de sot metier_. It is only the fool who is ashamed of his trade.
But enough of preaching. I had intended--when I took up my pen to-day--to write on quite another form of this modern folly, this eternal struggle upward into circles for which the struggler is fitted neither by his birth nor his education; the above was to have been but a preface to the matter I had in mind, viz., "social climbers," those scourges of modern society, the people whom no rebuffs will discourage and no cold shoulder chill, whose efforts have done so much to make our countrymen a byword abroad.
As many philosophers teach that trouble only is positive, happiness being merely relative; that in any case trouble is pretty equally distributed among the different conditions of mankind; that, excepting the destitute and physically afflicted, all God's creatures have a share of joy in their lives, would it not be more logical, as well as more conducive to the general good, if a little more were done to make the young contented with their lot in life, instead of constantly suggesting to a race already prone to be unsettled, that nothing short of the top is worthy of an American citizen?
No. 26--The Climber
That form of misplaced ambition, which is the subject of the preceding chapter, can only be regarded seriously when it occurs among simple and sincere people, who, however derided, honestly believe that they are doing their duty to themselves and their families when they move heaven and earth to rise a few steps in the world. The moment we find ambition taking a purely social form, it becomes ridiculous. The aim is so paltry in comparison with the effort, and so out of proportion with the energy- exerted to attain it, that one can only laugh and wonder! Unfortunately, signs of this puerile spirit (peculiar to the last quarter of the nineteenth century) can be seen on all hands and in almost every society.
That any man or woman should make it the unique aim and object of existence to get into a certain "set," not from any hope of profit or benefit, nor from the belief that it is composed of brilliant and amusing people, but simply because it passes for being exclusive and difficult of access, does at first seem incredible.
That humble young painters or singers should long to know personally the great lights of their professions, and should strive to be accepted among them is easily understood, since the aspirants can reap but benefit, present and future, from such companionship. That a rising politician should deem it all-important to be on friendly terms with the "bosses" is not astonishing, for those magnates have it in their power to make or mar his fortune. But in a _milieu_ as fluctuating as any social circle must necessarily be, shading off on all sides and changing as constantly as light on water, the end can never be considered as achieved or the goal attained.
Neither does any particular result accompany success, more substantial than the moral one which lies in self-congratulation. That, however, is enough for a climber if she is bitten with the "ascending" madness. (I say "she," because this form of ambition is more frequent among women, although by no means unknown to the sterner sex.)
It amuses me vastly to sit in my corner and watch one of these _fin-de- siecle_ diplomatists work out her little problem. She generally comes plunging into our city from outside, hot for conquest, making acquaintances right and left, indiscriminately; thus falling an easy prey to the wolves that prowl around the edges of society, waiting for just such lambs to devour. Her first entertainments are worth attending for she has ingeniously contrived to get together all the people she should have left out, and failed to attract the social lights and powers of the moment. If she be a quick-witted lady, she soon sees the error of her ways and begins a process of "weeding"--as difficult as it is unwise, each rejected "weed" instantly becoming an enemy for life, not to speak of the risk she, in her ignorance, runs of mistaking for "detrimentals" the _fines fleurs_ of the worldly parterre. Ah! the way of the Climber is hard; she now begins to see that her path is not strewn with flowers.
One tactful person of this kind, whose gradual "unfolding" was watched with much amusement and wonder by her acquaintances, avoided all these errors by going in early for a "dear friend." Having, after mature reflection, chosen her guide among the most exclusive of the young matrons, she proceeded quietly to pay her court _en regle_. Flattering little notes, boxes of candy, and bunches of flowers were among the forms her devotion took. As a natural result, these two ladies became inseparable, and the most hermetically sealed doors opened before the new arrival.
A talent for music or acting is another aid. A few years ago an entire family were floated into the desired haven on the waves of the sister's voice, and one young couple achieved success by the husband's aptitude for games and sports. In the latter case it was the man of the family who did the work, dragging his wife up after him. A polo pony is hardly one's idea of a battle-horse, but in this case it bore its rider on to success.
Once climbers have succeeded in installing themselves in the stronghold of their ambitions, they become more exclusive than their new friends ever dreamed of being, and it tries one's self-restraint to hear these new arrivals deploring "the levelling tendencies of the age," or wondering "how nice people can be beginning to call on those horrid So- and-Sos. Their father sold shoes, you know." This ultra-exclusiveness is not to be wondered at. The only attraction the circle they have just entered has for the climbers is its exclusiveness, and they do not intend that it shall lose its market value in their hands. Like Baudelaire, they believe that "it is only the small number saved that makes the charm of Paradise." Having spent hard cash in this investment, they have every intention of getting their money's worth.
In order to give outsiders a vivid impression of the footing on which they stand with the great of the world, all the women they have just met become Nellys and Jennys, and all the men Dicks and Freds--behind their backs, _bien entendu_--for Mrs. "Newcome" has not yet reached that point of intimacy which warrants using such abbreviations directly to the owners.
Another amiable weakness common to the climber is that of knowing everybody. No name can be mentioned at home or abroad but Parvenu happens to be on the most intimate terms with the owner, and when he is conversing, great names drop out of his mouth as plentifully as did the pearls from the pretty lips of the girl in the fairy story. All the world knows how such a gentleman, being asked on his return from the East if he had seen "the Dardanelles," answered, "Oh, dear, yes! I dined with them several times!" thus settling satisfactorily his standing in the Orient!
Climbing, like every other habit, soon takes possession of the whole nature. To abstain from it is torture. Napoleon, we are told, found it impossible to rest contented on his successes, but was impelled onward by a force stronger than his volition. In some such spirit the ambitious souls here referred to, after "the Conquest of America" and the discovery that the fruit of their struggles was not worth very much, victory having brought the inevitable satiety in its wake, sail away in search of new fields of adventure. They have long ago left behind the friends and acquaintances of their childhood. Relations they apparently have none, which accounts for the curious phenomenon that a parvenu is never in mourning. As no friendships bind them to their new circle, the ties are easily loosened. Why should they care for one city more than for another, unless it offer more of the sport they love? This continent has become tame, since there is no longer any struggle, while over the sea vast hunting grounds and game worthy of their powder, form an irresistible temptation--old and exclusive societies to be besieged, and contests to be waged compared to which their American experiences are but light skirmishes. As the polo pony is supposed to pant for the fray, so the hearts of social conquerors warm within them at the prospect of more brilliant victories.
The pleasure of following them on their hunting parties abroad will have to be deferred, so vast is the subject, so full of thrilling adventure and, alas! also of humiliating defeat.
No. 27--The Last of the Dandies