Paris, December 21, 1801.
If Paris affords a thousand enjoyments to the man of fortune, it may truly be said that, without money, Paris is the most melancholy abode in the world. Privations are then the more painful, because desires and even wants are rendered more poignant by the ostentatious display of every object which might satisfy them. What more cruel for an unfortunate fellow, with an empty purse, than to pass by the kitchen of arestaurateur, when, pinched by hunger, he has not the means of procuring himself a dinner? His olfactory nerves being still more readily affected when his stomach is empty, far from affording him a pleasing sensation, then serve only to sharpen the torment which he suffers. It is worse than the punishment of Tantalus, who, dying with thirst, could not drink, though up to his chin in water.
Really, my dear friend, I would advise every rich epicure to fix his residence in this city. Without being plagued by the details of housekeeping, or even at the trouble of looking at a bill of fare, he might feast his eye, and his appetite too, on the inviting plumpness of a turkey, stuffed with truffles. A boar's head set before him, with a Seville orange between its tusks, might make him fancy that he was discussing the greatest interests of mankind at the table of an Austrian Prime Minister, or British Secretary of State; whilepâtésofChartresor ofPérigordhold out to his discriminating palate all the refinements of French seasoning. These, and an endless variety of other dainties, no less tempting, might he contemplate here, in walking past amagazin de comestiblesor provision-warehouse.
Among the changes introduced here, within these few years, I had heard much of the improvements in the culinary art, or rather in the manner of serving up its productions; but, on my first arrival in Paris, I was so constantly engaged in a succession of dinner-parties, that some time elapsed before I could avail myself of an opportunity of dining at the house of any of the fashionable
RESTAURATEURS.
This is a title of no very ancient date in Paris.Traiteurshave long existed here: independently of furnishing repasts at home, thesetraiteurs, like Birch in Cornhill, or any other famous London cook, sent out dinners and suppers. But, in 1765, one BOULANGER conceived the idea ofrestoringthe exhausted animal functions of the debilitated Parisians by rich soups of various denominations. Not being atraiteur, it appears that he was not authorized to serve ragouts; he therefore, in addition to hisrestorativesoups, set before his customers new-laid eggs and boiled fowl with strong gravy sauce: those articles were served up without a cloth, on little marble tables. Over his door he placed the following inscription, borrowed from Scripture: "Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurabo vos."
Such was the origin of the word and profession ofrestaurateur.
Other cooks, in imitation of BOULANGER, set up asrestorers, on a similar plan, in all the places of public entertainment where such establishments were admissible. Novelty, fashion, and, above all, dearness, brought them into vogue. Many a person who would have been ashamed to be seen going into atraiteur's, made no hesitation of entering arestaurateur's, where he paid nearly double the price for a dinner of the same description. However, as, in all trades, it is the great number of customers that enrich the trader, rather than the select few, therestaurateurs, in order to make their business answer, were soon under the necessity of constituting themselvestraiteurs; so that, in lieu of one title, they now possess two; and this is the grand result of the primitive establishment.
At the head of the most notedrestaurateursin Paris, previously to the revolution, was LA BARRIÈRE in theci-devant Palais Royal; but, though his larder was always provided with choice food, his cellar furnished with good wines, his bill of fare long, and the number of his customers considerable, yet his profits, he said, were not sufficiently great to allow him to cover his tables with linen. This omission was supplied by green wax cloth; a piece of economy which, he declared, produced him a saving of near 10,000 livres (circa400£ sterling) per annum in the single article of washing. Hence you may form an idea of the extent of such an undertaking. I have often dined at LA BARRIÈRE'S was always well served, at a moderate charge, and with remarkable expedition. Much about that time, BEAUVILLIERS, who had opened, within the same precincts, a similar establishment, but on a more refined plan, proved a most formidable rival to LA BARRIÈRE, and at length eclipsed him.
After a lapse of almost eleven years, I again find this identical BEAUVILLIERS still in the full enjoyment of the greatest celebrity. ROBERT and NAUDET in thePalais du Tribunat, and VÉRY on theTerrace des Feuillantdispute with him the palm in the art of Apicius. All these, it is true, furnish excellent repasts, and their wines are not inferior to their cooking: but, after more than one impartial trial, I think I am justified in giving the preference to BEAUVILLIERS. Let us then take a view of his arrangements: this, with a few variations in price or quality, will serve as a general picture of thears coquinariain Paris.
On the first floor of a large hotel, formerly occupied, perhaps, by a farmer-general, you enter a suite of apartments, decorated with arabesques, and mirrors of large dimensions, in a style no less elegant than splendid, where tables are completely arranged for large or small parties. In winter, these rooms are warmed by ornamental stoves, and lighted byquinquets, a species of Argand's lamps. They are capable of accommodating from two hundred and fifty to three hundred persons, and, at this time of the year, the average number that dine here daily is about two hundred; in summer, it is considerably decreased by the attractions of the country, and the parties of pleasure made, in consequence, to the environs of the capital.
On the left hand, as you pass into the first room, rises a sort of throne, not unlike theestradoin the grand audience-chamber of a Spanish viceroy. This throne is encircled by a barrier to keep intruders at a respectful distance. Here sits a lady, who, from her majestic gravity and dignified bulk, you might very naturally suppose to be an empress, revolving in her comprehensive mind the affairs of her vast dominions. This respectable personage is Madame BEAUVILLIERS, whose most interesting concern is to collect from the gentlemen in waiting the cash which they receive at the different tables. In this important branch, she has the assistance of a lady, somewhat younger than herself, who, seated by her side, in stately silence, has every appearance of a maid of honour. A person in waiting near the throne, from his vacant look and obsequious carriage, might, at first sight, be taken for a chamberlain; whereas his real office, by no means an unimportant one, is to distribute into deserts the fruit and otheret ceteras, piled up within his reach in tempting profusion.
We will take our seats in this corner, whence, without laying down our knife and fork, we can enjoy a full view of the company as they enter. We are rather early: by the clock, I perceive that it is no more than five: at six, however, there will scarcely be a vacant seat at any of the tables. "Garçon, la carte!"—"La voilà devant vous, Monsieur."
Good heaven! the bill of fare is a printed sheet of doublefolio, of the size of an English newspaper. It will require half an hour at least to con over this important catalogue. Let us see; Soups, thirteen sorts.—Hors-d'œuvres, twenty-two species.—Beef, dressed in eleven different ways.—Pastry, containing fish, flesh and fowl, in eleven shapes. Poultry and game, under thirty-two various forms.—Veal, amplified into twenty-two distinct articles.—Mutton, confined to seventeen only.—Fish, twenty-three varieties.—Roast meat, game, and poultry, of fifteen kinds.—Entremets, or side-dishes, to the number of forty-one articles.—Desert, thirty-nine.—Wines, including those of the liqueur kind, of fifty-two denominations, besides ale and porter.—Liqueurs, twelve species, together with coffee and ices.
Fudge! fudge! you cry—Pardon me, my good friend, 'tis no fudge. Take the tremendous bill of fare into your own hand.Vide et lege. As we are in no particular hurry, travel article by article through the whole enumeration. This will afford you the most complete notion of the expense of dining at a fashionablerestaurateur'sin Paris.
BEAUVILLIERS, RESTAURATEUR
Anciennement à la grande Tavernede la République, Palais-Egalité,No. 142, Présentement Rue de la LOI, No. 1243.
PRIX DES METS POUR UNE PERSONNE.—LES ARTICLES DONTLES PRIX NE SONT POINT FIXES, MANQUENT.
One advantage, well deserving of notice, of this bill of fare with the price annexed to each article, is, that, when you have made up your mind as to what you wish to have for dinner, you have it in your power, before you give the order, to ascertain the expense. But, though you see the price of each dish, you see not the dish itself; and when it comes on the table, you may, perhaps, be astonished to find that a pompous, big-sounding name sometimes produces only a scrap of scarcely three mouthfuls. It is the mountain in labour delivered of a mouse.
However, if you are not a man of extraordinary appetite, you may, for the sum of nine or ten francs, appease your hunger, drink your bottle of Champagne or Burgundy, and, besides, assist digestion by a dish of coffee and a glass of liqueur. Should you like to partake of two different sorts of wine, you may order them, and drink at pleasure of both; if you do not reduce the contents below the moiety, you pay only for the half bottle. A necessary piece of advice to you as a stranger, is, that, while you are dispatching your first dish, you should take care to order your second, and so on in progression to the end of the chapter: otherwise, for want of this precaution, when the company is very numerous, you may, probably, have to wait some little time between the acts, before you are served.
This is no trifling consideration, if you purpose, after dinner, to visit one of the principal theatres: for, if a new or favourite piece be announced, the house is full, long before the raising of the curtain; and you not only find no room at the theatre to which you first repair; but, in all probability, this disappointment will follow you to every other for that evening.
Nevertheless, ten or fifteen minutes are sufficient for the most dainty or troublesome dish to undergo its final preparation, and in that time you will have it smoking on the table. Those which admit of being completely prepared beforehand, are in a constant state of readiness, and require only to be set over the fire to be warmed. Each cook has a distinct branch to attend to in the kitchen, and the call of a particular waiter to answer, as each waiter has a distinct number of tables, and the orders of particular guests to obey in the dining-rooms. In spite of the confused noise arising from the gabble of so many tongues, there being probably eighty or a hundred persons calling for different articles, many of whom are hasty and impatient, such is the habitual good order observed, that seldom does any mistake occur; the louder the vociferations of the hungry guests, the greater the diligence of the alert waiters. Should any article, when served, happen not to suit your taste, it is taken back and changed without the slightest murmur.
The difference between the establishments of the fashionablerestaurateursbefore the revolution, and those in vogue at the present day, is, that their profession presenting many candidates for public favour, they are under the continual necessity of employing every resource of art to attract customers, and secure a continuance of them. The commodiousness and elegance of their rooms, the savouriness of their cooking, the quality of their wines, the promptitude of their attendants, all are minutely criticized; and, if they study their own interest, they must neglect nothing to flatter the eyes and palate. In fact, how do they know that some of their epicurean guests may not have been of their own fraternity, and once figured in a great French family aschef de cuisine?
Of course, with all this increase of luxury, you must expect an increase of expense: but if you do not now dine here at so reasonable a rate as formerly, at least you are sumptuously served for your money. If you wish to dine frugally, there are numbers ofrestaurateurs, where you may be decently served withpotage,bouilli, anentrée, anentremet, bread and desert, for the moderate sum of from twenty-six to thirtysous. The addresses of these cheap eating-houses, if they are not put into your hand in the street, will present themselves to your eye, at the corner of almost every wall in Paris. Indeed, all things considered, I am of opinion that the difference in the expense of a dinner at arestaurateur'sat present, and what it was ten or eleven years ago, is not more than in the due proportion of the increased price of provisions, house-rent, and taxes.
The difference the most worthy of remark in these rendezvous of good cheer, unquestionably consists in the company who frequent them. In former times, the dining-rooms of the fashionablerestaurateurswere chiefly resorted to by young men of good character and connexions, just entering into life, superannuated officers and batchelors in easy circumstances, foreigners on their travels, &c. At this day, these are, in a great measure, succeeded by stock-jobbers, contractors, fortunate speculators, and professed gamblers. In defiance of the old proverb, "le ventre est le plus grand de tous nos ennemis," guttling and guzzling is the rage of these upstarts. It is by no means uncommon to see many of them begin their dinner by swallowing six or seven dozen of oysters and a bottle of white wine, by way of laying a foundation for apotage en tortueand eight or ten other rich dishes. Such are the modern parvenus, whose craving appetites, in eating and drinking, as in every thing else, are not easily satiated.
It would be almost superfluous to mention, that where rich rogues abound, luxurious courtesans are at no great distance, were it not for the sake of remarking that the former often regale the latter at therestaurateurs, especially at those houses which afford the convenience of snug, little rooms, calledcabinets particuliers. Here, two persons, who have any secret affairs to settle, enjoy all possible privacy; for even the waiter never has the imprudence to enter without being called. In these asylums, Love arranges under his laws many individuals not suspected of sacrificing at the shrine of that wonder-working deity. Prudes, whose virtue is the universal boast, and whose austerity drives thousands of beaux to despair, sometimes make themselves amends for the reserve which they are obliged to affect in public, by indulging in a privatetête-à-têtein these mysterious recesses. In them too, young lovers frequently interchange the first declarations of eternal affection; to them many a husband owes the happiness of paternity; and without them the gay wife might, perhaps, be at a loss to deceive her jealous Argus, and find an opportunity of lending an attentive ear to the rapturous addresses of her aspiring gallant.
What establishment then can be more convenient than that of arestaurateur? But you would be mistaken, were you to look forcabinets particuliersat every house of this denomination, Here, at BEAUVILLIERS', for instance, you will find no such accommodation, though if you dislike dining in public, you may have a private room proportioned to the number of a respectable party: or, should you be sitting at home, and just before the hour of dinner, two or three friends call in unexpectedly, if you wish to enjoy their company in a quiet, sociable manner, you have only to dispatch yourvalet de placeto BEAUVILLIERS' or to the nearestrestaurateurof repute for the bill of fare, and at the same time desire him to bring table-linen, knives, silver forks, spoons, and all other necessary appurtenances. While he is laying the cloth, you fix on your dinner, and, in little more than a quarter of an hour, you have one or two elegant courses, dressed in a capital style, set out on the table. As for wine, if you find it cheaper, you can procure that article from some respectable wine-merchant in the neighbourhood. In order to save trouble, many single persons, and even small families now scarcely ever cook at home; but either dine at arestaurateur's, or have their dinners constantly furnished from one of these sources of culinary perfection.
But, while I am relating to you the advantages of these establishments, time flies apace: 'tis six o'clock.—If you are not disposed to drink more wine, let us have some coffee and our bill. When you want to pay, you say: "Garçon, la carte payante!" The waiter instantly flies to a person, appointed for that purpose, to whom he dictates your reckoning. On consulting your stomach, should you doubt what you have consumed, you have only to call in the aid of your memory, and you will be perfectly satisfied that you have not been charged with a single article too much or too little.
Remark that portly man, so respectful in his demeanour. It is BEAUVILLIERS, the master of the house: this is his most busy hour, and he will now make a tour to inquire at the different tables, if his guests are all served according to their wishes. He will then, like an able general, take a central station, whence he can command a view of all his dispositions. The person, apparently next in consequence to himself, and who seems to have his mind absorbed in other objects, is the butler: his thoughts are, with the wine under his care, in the cellar.
Observe the cleanly attention of the waiters, neatly habited in close-bodied vests, with white aprons before them: watch the quickness of their motions, and you will be convinced that no scouts of a camp could be moreon the alert. An establishment, so extremely well conducted, excites admiration. Every spring of the machine duly performs its office; and the regularity of the whole might serve as a model for the administration of an extensive State. Repair then, ye modern Machiavels, to N° 1243,Rue de la Loi; and, while you are gratifying your palate, imbibe instruction from BEAUVILLIERS.
PARIS
AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS;
OR
A Sketch of the French Capital,
ILLUSTRATIVE OF
THE EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION,
WITH RESPECT TO
SCIENCES,LITERATURE,ARTS,RELIGION,EDUCATION,MANNERS,ANDAMUSEMENTS;
COMPRISING ALSO
A correct Account of the most remarkable National Establishments and Public Buildings.
In a Series of Letters,
WRITTEN BY AN ENGLISH TRAVELLER,
DURING THE YEARS 1801-2,
TO A FRIEND IN LONDON.
Ipsâ varietate tentamus efficere, ut alia aliis, quædem fortasse omnibus placeant. PLIN. Epist.
VOL. II
LONDON
1803
Paris, December 23, 1801.
An establishment at once deserving of the attention of men of feeling, particularly of those who, in cultivating literature, apply themselves to the science of metaphysics and grammar; an establishment extremely interesting to every one, the great difficulties of which mankind had, repeatedly, in the course of ages, endeavoured to encounter, and which had driven to despair all those who had ventured to engage in the undertaking; an establishment, in a word, which produces the happiest effects, and in a most wonderful manner, is the
NATIONAL INSTITUTION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.
To the most religious of philanthropists is France indebted for this sublime discovery, and the Abbé SICARD, a pupil of the inventor; the Abbé de l'Epée, has carried it to such a degree of perfection, that it scarcely appears possible to make any further progress in so useful an undertaking. And, in fact, what can be wanting to a species of instruction the object of which is to establish between the deaf and dumb, and the man who hears and speaks, a communication like that established between all men by the knowledge and practice of the same idiom; when the deaf and dumb man, by the help of the education given him, succeeds in decomposing into phrases the longest period; into simple propositions, the most complex phrase; into words, each proposition; into simple words, words the most complex: and when he distinguishes perfectly words derived from primitives; figurative words from proper ones; and when, after having thus decomposed the longest discourse, he recomposes it; when, in short, the deaf and dumb man expresses all his ideas, all his thoughts, and all his affections; when he answers, like men the best-informed, all questions put to him, respecting what he knows through the nature of his intelligence, and respecting what he has learned, either from himself or from him who has enlightened his understanding? What wish remains to be formed, when the deaf and dumb man is enabled to learn by himself a foreign language, when he translates it, and writes it, as well as those of whom it is the mother-tongue?
Such is the phenomenon which the Institution of the deaf and dumb presents to the astonishment of Europe, under the direction, or rather under the regeneration of the successor of the celebrated Abbé de l'Epée. His pupils realize every thing that I have just mentioned. They write English and Italian as well as they do French. Nothing equals the justness and precision of their definitions.
Nor let it be imagined that they resemble birds repeating the tunes they have learned. Never have they been taught the answer to a question. Their answers are always the effect of their good logic, and of the ideas of objects and of qualities of beings, acquired by a mind which the Institutor has formed from the great art of observation.
This institution was far short of its present state of perfection at the death of the celebrated inventor, which happened on the 23d of December 1789. During the long career of their first father, the deaf and dumb had been able to find means only to write, under the dictation of signs, words whose import was scarcely known to them. When endeavours were made to make them emerge from the confined sphere of the first wants, not one of them knew how to express in writing any thing but ideas of sense and wants of the first necessity. The nature of the verb, the relations of tenses, that of other words comprehended in the phrase, and which form the syntax of languages, were utterly unknown to them. And, indeed, how could they answer the most trifling question? Every thing in the construction of a period was to them an enigma.
It was not long before the successor of the inventor discovered the defect of this instruction, which was purely mechanical and acquired by rote. He thought he perceived this defect in theconcreteverb, in which the deaf and dumb, seeing only a single word, were unable to distinguish two ideas which are comprehended in it, that of affirmation and that of quality. He thought he perceived also that defect in the expression of the qualities, always presented, in all languages, out of the subjects, and never in the noun which they modify; and, by the help of a process no less simple than ingenious and profound, he has made the deaf and dumb comprehend the most arduous difficulty, the nature of abstraction; he has initiated them in the art of generalizing ideas by presenting to them the adjective in the noun, as the quality is in the object, and the quality subsisting alone and out of the object, having no support but in the mind, for him who considers it, and but in the abstract noun for him who reads the expression of it. He has, in like manner, separated the verb from the quality in concrete verbs, and communicated to the deaf and dumb the knowledge of the true verb, which he has pointed out to them in the termination of all the French verbs, by reattaching to the subject, by a line agreed on, its verbal quality. This line he has translated by the verbto be, the only verb recognized by philosophic grammarians.
These are the two foundations of this very extraordinary source of instruction, and on which all the rest depend. The pronouns are learned by nouns; the tenses of conjugation, by the three absolute tenses of conjugation of all languages; and these, by this line, so happily imagined, which is a sign of the present when it connects the verbal quality and the subject, a sign of the past when it is intersected, a sign of the future when it is only begun.
All the conjugations are reduced to a single one, as are all the verbs. The adverbs considered as adjectives, when they express the manner, and as substitutes for a preposition and its government, when they express time or place, &c. The preposition represented as a mean of transmitting the influence of the word which precedes it to that which follows it; the articles serving, as in the English language, to determine the extent of a common noun. Such is a summary of the grammatical system of the Institutor of the deaf and dumb.
It is the metaphysical part, above all, which, in this institution, is carried to such a degree of simplicity and clearness, that it is within reach of understandings the most limited. And, indeed, one ought not to be astonished at the rapid progress of the deaf and dumb in the art of expressing their ideas and of communicating in writing with every speaker, as persons absent communicate with each other by similar means. In the space of eighteen months, a pupil begins to give an account in writing of the actions of which he is rendered a witness, and, in the space of five years, his education is complete.
The objects in which the deaf and dumb are instructed, are Grammar, the notions of Metaphysics and Logic, which the former renders necessary, Religion, the Use of the Globes, Geography, Arithmetic, general notions of History, ancient and modern, of Natural History, of Arts and Trades, &c.
These unfortunates, restored by communication to society, from which Nature seemed to have intended to exclude them, are usefully employed. One of their principal occupations is a knowledge of a mechanical art. Masters in the most ordinary arts are established in the house of the deaf and dumb, and every one there finds employment in the art which best suits his inclination, his strength, and his natural disposition. In this school, which is established at the extremity of theFaubourg St. Jacques, is a printing-office, where some are employed as compositors; others, as pressmen. In a preparatory drawing-school they are taught the rudiments of painting, engraving, and Mosaic, for the last of which there are two workshops. There is also a person to teach engraving on fine grained stones, as well as a joiner, a tailor, and a shoemaker. The garden, which is large, is cultivated by the deaf and dumb. Almost every thing that is used by them is made by themselves. They make their own bedsteads, chairs, tables, benches, and clothes. The deaf and dumb females too make their shirts, and the rest of their linen.
Thus their time is so taken up that, with the exception of three hours devoted to moral instruction, all the rest is employed in manual labour.
Such is this establishment, where the heart is agreeably affected at the admirable spectacle which presents at once every thing that does the most honour to human intelligence, in the efforts which it has been necessary to make in order to overcome the obstacles opposed to its development by the privation of the sense the most useful, and that of the faculty the most essential to the communication of men with one another, and the sight of the physical power employed in seeking, in arts and trades, resources which render men independent.
But to what degree are these unfortunates deaf, and why are they dumb?
It is well known that they are dumb because they are deaf, and they are more or less deaf, when they are so only by accident, in proportion as the auditory nerve is more or less braced, or more or less relaxed. In various experiments made on sound, some have heard sharp sounds, and not grave ones; others, on the contrary, have heard grave sounds, and not sharp ones.
All would learn, were it deemed expedient to teach them, the mechanism of speech. But, besides that the sounds which they would utter, would never be heard by themselves, and they would never be conscious of having uttered them, those, sounds would be to those who might listen to them infinitely disagreeable. Never could they be of use, to them in conversing with us, and they would serve only to counteract their instruction.
Woe be to the deaf and dumb whom it should be proposed to instruct by teaching them to speak! How, in fact, can, the development of the understanding be assisted by teaching them a mechanism which has no object or destination, when the thought already formed in the mind, by the help of signs which fix the ideas, restores not the mechanism of speech?
Of this the Institutor has been fully sensible, and, although in his public lessons, he explains all the efforts of the vocal instrument or organ of the voice, and proves that he could, as well as any other man, teach the deaf and dumb to make use of it, all his labour is confined to exercising the instrument of thought, persuaded that every thing will be obtained, when the deaf and dumb shall have learned to arrange their ideas, and to think.
It is then only that the Institutor gives lessons of analysis. But, how brilliant are they! You think yourself transported into a class of logic. The deaf and dumb man has ceased to be so. A contest begins between him and his master. All the spectators are astonished; every one wishes to retain what is written on both sides. It is a lesson given to all present.
Every one is invited to interrogate the deaf and dumb man, and he answers to any person whatsoever, with a pen or pencil in his hand, and in the same manner puts a question. He is asked, "What is Time?"—"Time," says the dumb pupil, "is a portion of duration, the nature of which is to be successive, to have commenced, and consequently to have passed, and to be no more; to be present, and to be so through necessity. Time," adds he, "is the fleeting or the future." As if in the eyes of the dumb there was nothing real in Time but the future.—"What is eternity?" says another to him—"It is a day without yesterday, or to-morrow," replies the pupil.—"What is a sense?"—"It is a vehicle for ideas."—"What is duration?"—"It is a line which has no end, or a circle."—"What is happiness?"—"It is a pleasure which never ceases."—"What is God?"—"The author of nature, the sun of eternity."—"What is friendship?"—"The affection of the mind."—"What is gratitude?"—"The memory of the heart."
There are a thousand answers of this description, daily collected at the lessons of the deaf and dumb by those who attend them, and which attest the superiority of this kind of instruction over the common methods. Thus, this institution is not only, in regard to beneficence and humanity, deserving of the admiration of men of feeling, it merits also the observation of men of superior understanding and true philosophers, on account of the ingenious process employed here to supply the place of the sense of seeing by that of hearing, and speech by gesture and writing.
I must not conceal from my countrymen, above all, that the Institutor, in his public lessons, formally declares, that it is by giving to the French language the simple form of ours, and accommodating to it our syntax, he has been chiefly successful in making the deaf and dumb understand that of their own country. I must also add, that it is no more than a justice due to the Institutor to say that, in the midst of the concourse of auditors, who press round him, and who offer him the homage due to his genius and philanthropy, he shews for all the English an honourable preference, acknowledging to them, publicly, that this attention is a debt which he discharges in return for the asylum that we granted to the unfortunate persons of his profession, who, emigrating from their native land, came among us to seek consolation, and found another home.
Should ever this feeble sketch of so interesting an institution reach SICARD, that religious philosopher, who belongs as much to every country in the world as to France, the land which gave him birth, he will find in it nothing more than the expression of the gratitude of one Englishman; but he may promise himself that as soon as the definitive treaty of peace shall have reopened a free intercourse between the two nations, the sentiments contained in it will be adopted by all the English who shall witness the extraordinary success of his profoundly-meditated labours. They will all hasten to pay their tribute of admiration to a man, whose most gratifying reward consists in the benefits which he has had the happiness to confer on that part of his fellow-creatures from whom Nature has withheld her usual indulgence.
Paris, December 25, 1801.
Much has been said of the general tone of immorality now prevailing in this capital, and so much, that it becomes necessary to look beyond the surface, and examine whether morals be really more corrupt here at the present day than before the revolution. To investigate the subject through all its various branches and ramifications, would lead me far beyond the limits of a letter. I shall therefore, as a criterion, take a comparative view of the increase or decrease of the different classes of women, who, either publicly or privately, deviate from the paths of virtue. If we begin with the lowest rank, and ascend, step by step, to the highest, we first meet with those unfortunate creatures, known in France by the general designation of
PUBLIC WOMEN.
Their number in Paris, twelve years ago, was estimated at thirty thousand; and if this should appear comparatively small, it must be considered how many amorous connexions here occupy the attention of thousands of men, and consequently tend to diminish the number ofpublicwomen.
The question is not to ascertain whether it be necessary, for the tranquillity of private families, that there should be public women. Who can fairly estimate the extent of the mischief which they produce, or of that which they obviate? Who can accurately determine the best means for bringing the good to overbalance the evil? But, supposing the necessity of the measure, would it not be proper to prevent, as much as possible, that complete mixture by which virtuous females are often confounded with impures?
Charlemagne, though himself a great admirer of the sex, was of that opinion. He had, in vain, endeavoured to banish entirely from Paris women of this description; by ordering that they should be condemned to be publicly whipped, and that those who harboured them, should carry them on their shoulders to the place where the sentence was put in execution. But it was not a little singular that, while the emperor was bent on reforming the morals of the frail fair, his two daughters, the princesses Gifla and Rotrude, were indulging in all the vicious foibles of their nature.
Charlemagne, who then resided in thePalais des Thermes, situated in theRue de la Harpe, happened to rise one winter's morning much earlier than usual. After walking for some time about his room, he went to a window which looked into a little court belonging to the palace. How great was his astonishment, when, by the twilight, he perceived his second daughter, Rotrude, with Eginhard, his prime minister, on her back, whom she was carrying through the deep snow which had fallen in the night in order that the foot-steps of a man might not be traced.
When Lewis thedébonnaire, his successor, ascended the throne, he undertook to reform these two princesses, whose father's fondness had prevented him from suffering them to marry. The new king began by putting to death two noblemen who passed for their lovers, thinking that this example would intimidate, and that they would find no more: but it appears that he was mistaken, for they were never at a loss. Nor is this to be wondered at, as these princesses to a taste for literature joined a very lively imagination, and were extremely affable, generous, and beneficent; on which account, says Father Daniel, they died universally regretted.
Experience having soon proved that public women are a necessary evil in great cities, it was resolved to tolerate them. They therefore began to form a separate body, became subject to taxes, and had their statutes and judges. They were calledfemmes amoureuses,filles folles de leur corps, and, on St. Magdalen's day, they were accustomed to form annually a solemn procession. Particular streets were assigned to them for their abode; and a house in each street, for their commerce.
A penitentiary asylum, calledles Filles Dieu, was founded at Paris in 1226, and continued for some years open for the reception offemale sinners who had gone astray, and were reduced to beggary. In the time of St. Lewis, their number amounted to two hundred; but becoming rich, they became dissolute, and in 1483, they were succeeded by the reformed nuns of Fontevrault.
When I was here in the year 1784, a great concourse of people daily visited this convent in order to view the body of an ancient virgin and martyr, said to be that of St. Victoria, which, having been lately dug up near Rome, had just been sent to these nuns by the Pope. This relic being exposed for some time to the veneration and curiosity of the Parisian public, the devout wondered to see the fair saint with a complexion quite fresh and rosy, after having been dead for several centuries, and, in their opinion, this was a miracle which incontestably proved her sanctity. The incredulous, who did not see things in the same light, thought that the face was artificial, and that it presented one of those holy frauds which have so frequently furnished weapons to impiety. But they were partly mistaken: the nuns had thought proper to cover the face of the saint with a mask, and to clothe her from head to foot, in order to skreen from the eyes of the public the hideous spectacle of a skeleton.
In 1420, Lewis VIII, with a view of distinguishing impures from modest women, forbade the former to wear golden girdles, then in fashion. This prohibition was vain, and the virtuous part of the sex consoled themselves by the testimony of their conscience, whence the old proverb: "Bonne rénommée vaut mieux que ceinture dorée."
Another establishment, first calledLes Filles pénitentes ou repenties, and afterwardsFilles de St. Magloire, was instituted in 1497 by a Cordelier, and had the same destination. He preached against libertinism, and with such success, that two hundred dissolute women were converted by his fervent eloquence. The friar admitted them into his congregation, which was sanctioned by the Pope. Its statutes, which were drawn up by the Bishop of Paris, are not a little curious. Among other things, it was established, that "none should be received but women who had led a dissolute life, and that, in order to ascertain the fact, they should be examined by matrons, who should swear on the Holy Evangelists to make a faithful report."
There can be no doubt that women were well taken care of in this house, since it was supposed that virtue even might assume the mask of vice to obtain admission. The fact is singular. "To prevent girls from prostituting themselves in order to be received, those who shall have been once examined and refused, shall be excluded for ever.
"Besides, the candidates shall be obliged to swear, under penalty of their eternal damnation, in presence of their confessor and six nuns, that they did not prostitute themselves with a view of entering into this congregation; and in order that women of bad character may not wait too long before they become converted, in the hope that the door will always be open to them, none will be received above the age of thirty."
This community, for some years, continued tolerably numerous; but its destination had been changed long before the suppression of convents, which took place in the early part of the revolution. All the places of public prostitution in Paris, after having been tolerated upwards of four hundred years, were abolished by a decree of the States General, held at Orleans in 1560. The number of women of the town, however, was far from being diminished, though their profession was no longer considered as a trade; and as they were prohibited from being any where, that is, in any fixed place, they were compelled to spread themselves every where.
At the present day, the number of these women in Paris is computed at twenty-five thousand: they are taken up as formerly, in order to be sent into infirmaries, whence they, generally, come out only to return to their former habits. Twelve years ago, those apprehended underwent a public examination once a month, and were commonly sentenced to a confinement, more or less long, according to the pleasure of the minister of the police. The examination of them became a matter of amusement for persons of not over-delicate feelings. The hardened females, neither respecting the judge not the audience, impudently repeated the language and gestures of their traffic. The judge added a fortnight's imprisonment for every insult, and the most abandoned were confined only a few months longer in theSalpétrière.
Endeavours have since been made to improve the internal regulation of this and similar houses of correction; but, as far as my information goes, with little success. For want of separating, from the beginning of their confinement, the most debauched from those whom a moment of distress or error has thrown into these scenes of depravity, the contamination of bad example rapidly spreads, and those who enter dissolute, frequently come out thievish; while all timidity is banished from the mind of the more diffident. Besides, it is not always the most culpable who fall into the hands of the police, the more cunning and experienced, by contriving to come to terms with its agents, employed on these errands, generally escape; and thus the object in view is entirely defeated.
On their arrival at theSalpétrière, the healthy are separated from the diseased; and the latter are sent toBicêtre, where they either find a cure or death. Your imagination will supply the finishing strokes of this frightful picture.—These unfortunate victims of indigence or of the seduction of man, are deserving of compassion. With all their vices, they have, after all, one less than many of their sex who pride themselves on chastity, without really possessing it; that is, hypocrisy. As they shew themselves to be what they really are, they cannot make the secret mischief which a detected prude not unfrequently occasions under the deceitful mask of modesty. Degraded in their own eyes, and being no longer able to reign through the graces of virtue, they fall into the opposite extreme, and display all the audaciousness of vice.
The next class we come to is that which was almost honoured by the Greeks, and tolerated by the Romans, under the denomination of
COURTESANS.
By courtesans, I mean those ladies who, decked out in all the luxury of dress, if not covered with diamonds, put up their favours to the highest bidder, without having either more beauty or accomplishments, perhaps, than the distressed female who sells hers at the lowest price. But caprice, good fortune, intrigue, or artifice, sometimes occasions an enormous distance between women who have the same views.
If the ancients made great sacrifices for the Phrynes, the Laïses, or the Aspasias of the day, among the moderns, no nation has, in that respect, surpassed the French. Every one has heard of the luxurious extravagance of Mademoiselle Deschamps, the cushion of whosechaise-percée, was trimmed with point-lace of very considerable value, and the harness of whose carriage was studded with paste, in imitation of diamonds. This woman, however, lived to repent of her folly; and if she did not literally die in a poorhouse, she at least ended her days in wretchedness.
Before the revolution, of all the gay ladies in Paris, Madame Grandval displayed the greatest luxury in her equipage; and Mademoiselle D'Hervieux, in her house. I knew them both. The former I have seen at Longchamp, as well as at the annual review of the king's household troops, in a splendid coach, as fine as that of any Lord Mayor, drawn by a set of eight English grays, which cost a hundred and twenty guineas a horse. She sat, like a queen, adorned with a profusion of jewels; and facing her was adame de compagnie, representing a lady of the bedchamber. Behind the carriage, stood no less than three tall footmen, besides a chasseur, in the style of that of the Duke of Gloucester, in rich liveries, with swords, canes, and bags.
As for the house of Mademoiselle D'Hervieux, it was every thing that oriental luxury, combined with French taste, could unite on a small scale. Although of very low origin, and by no means gifted with a handsome person, this lady, after having, rather late in life, obtained an introduction on the opera-stage as a commonfigurante, contrived to insinuate herself into the good graces of some rich protectors. On theChaussée d'Antin, they built for her this palace in miniature, which, twelve years ago, was the object of universal admiration, and, in fact, was visited by strangers as one of the curiosities of Paris.
At the present day, one neither sees nor hears of such favourites of fortune; and, for want of subjects to paint under this head, I must proceed to those of the next rank, who are styled
KEPT WOMEN.
What distinctions, what shades, what different names to express almost one and the same thing! From the haughty fair in a brilliant equipage, figuring, like a favourite Sultana, with "all the pride, pomp, and circumstance" of the toilet, down to the hunger-pinched female, who stands shivering in the evening at the corner of a street, what gradations in the same profession!
Before the revolution, there were reckoned in Paris eight or ten thousand women to whom the rich nobility or financiers allowed from a thousand pounds a year upwards to an almost incredible amount. Some of these ladies have ruined a whole family in the short space of six months; and, having nothing left at the year's end, were then under the necessity of parting with their diamonds for a subsistence. Although many of them are far inferior in opulence to the courtesans, they are less depraved, and, consequently, superior to them in estimation. They have a lover, who pays, and from whom they, in general, get all they can, at the same time turning him into ridicule, and another whom, in their turn, they pay, and for whom they commit a thousand follies.
These women used to have no medium in their attachments; they were either quite insensible to the soft passion, or loved almost to distraction. On the wane, they had the rage for marrying, and many of them found men who, preferring fortune to honour, disgraced themselves by such alliances. Some of these ladies, if handsome, were not unfrequently taken by a man of fortune, and kept from mere ostentation, just as he would sport a superlatively elegant carriage, or ride a very capital horse; others were maintained from caprice, which, like Achilles's spear, carried with it its own antidote; and then, of course, they passed into the hands of different keepers. It cannot be denied, however that a few of these connexions were founded on attachment; and when the woman, who was the object of it, was possessed of understanding, she assumed the manners and deportment of a wife. Indeed, now and then a keeper adopted the style of oriental gallantry.
Beaujon, the banker of the court, who had amassed an immense fortune, indulged himself in his old age, and, till his death, in a society composed of pretty women, some of whom belonged to what was then termed good families, among which he had diffused his presents. In an elegant habitation, calledla Chartreuse, which he erected in theFaubourg du Roule, as a place of occasional retirement, was a most curious apartment, representing a bower, in the midst of which was placed a bedstead in imitation of a basket of flowers: four trees, whose verdant foliage extended over part of the ceiling, which was painted as a sky, seemed to shade this basket, and supported drapery, suspended to their branches. This was M. Beaujon's Temple of Venus.
The late Prince of Soubise, for some years, constantly kept ten or a dozen ladies. The only intercourse he had with them, was to breakfast or chat with them twice or thrice a month, and latterly he maintained several old stagers, in this manner, from motives of benevolence. At the end of the month, all these ladies came in their carriages at a fixed hour, in a string, as it were, one after the other. The steward had their money ready; they afterwards, one by one, entered a very spacious room furnished with large closets, filled with silks, muslins, laces, ribbands, &c. The prince distributed presents to each, according to her age and taste: thus ended a visit of mere ceremony, interspersed with a few words of general gallantry.
Such was the style in which many women were kept by men of fortune under the oldrégime. At the present day, if we except twenty or thirty perhaps, it would be no easy matter to discover any women supported in a style of elegance in Paris, and the lot of these seems scarcely secured but from month to month. The reason of this mystery is, that the modern Crœsuses having mostly acquired their riches in a clandestine manner, they take every possible precaution to prevent the reports in circulation concerning their ill-gotten pelf from being confirmed by a display of luxury in theirchères amies. On this account, many a matrimonial connexion, I am told, is formed between them and women of equivocal character, on the principle, that a man is better able to check the extravagant excesses of his wife than those of his mistress.