IION HER EVERYDAY PERFORMANCE
Sight-seeing in Paris must be like looking at the Venus of Milo on a roll of cinematograph films—an experience too harrowing to be remembered. I am sure it is the better part of discretion to forswear Baedeker, and without system just to “poke round.” Thus one catches the artists, in the multiform moods of their life, as ordinary beings; and stumbles across historic wonders enough into the bargain.
Really to take Paris unawares, one must get up in the morning before she does, and slip out into the street when the white-bloused baker’s boy and a sleepycocheror two, with their drowsy, dawdling horses, are all the life to be seen. One walks along the empty boulevards, down the quiet Rue de la Paix, into the stately serenity of the Place Vendôme and on across the shining Seine into the grey, ancient stillness of the crooked Rue du Bac. And in this early morning calm, of solitary spaces and clear sunshine, fresh-sprinkled streets and gently fluttering trees, one meets with a new and altogether different Paris from the dazzling, exotic city one knows by day and at night.
Absent is the snort and reckless rush of motors, the insistent jangling of tram and horse’s bells, the rumble of carts and clip-clop of their Norman stallions’ feet; absent the hurrying, kaleidoscopic throngs who issue from the subway stations and fill the thoroughfares; absent even that familiar smell-of-the-city which in Paris is a fusion of gasoline, wet asphalt, and the faint fragrance of women’ssachet: this virgin morning peace is without odour save the odour of fresh leaves, without noise, without the bustle of moving people. The city stretches its broad arms North and South, East and West, like a serene woman in the embrace of tranquil dreams; and suggests a soft and beautiful repose.
But, while still you are drinking deep of it, she stirs—opens her eyes. A distant cry is heard: “E-e-eh, pommes de terre-eeeeh!” And then another: “Les petites fraises du bois! Les petites fraises!” And the cries come nearer, and there is the sound of steps and the creak of a hand-cart; and Paris rubs her eyes and wakes up—she must go out and buy potatoes!
The same fat, brown-faced woman with the same two dogs—one pulling the cart, one running fussily along-side—has sold potatoes in the same streets round the Place Vendôme, ever since I can remember. For years, her lingering vibrant cry has roused this part of Paris to the first sign of day. And while she is making change, and gossiping with the concierge, and the smaller dog is sniffing impatiently round her skirts, windows are opened, gratings groan up, at thecorner some workmen call to one another—and the day is begun.
While the streets are still comparatively empty, let us follow the first abroad—the littlemidinette(shop-girl) and her mother—to mass. They will choose one of the old, unfashionable churches, like St. Roch orLa Trinité; though on Sundays they go to the Madeleine to hear the music, and revel in splendid pomp and pageantry. France at heart is agnostic; a nation of fatalists, if anything. But the vivid French imagination is held in thrall by the colour and mystic ritual of the Catholic church: by the most perfect in ceremonial and detail of all religions. When the curtain rises on the full magnificence of gorgeous altar, golden-robed bishop and officiating priests; when, in accompaniment to the sonorousAves, exquisite music peals forth, and the whole is blended, melted together by the soft light of candles, the subtle haze of incense: into French faces comes that ecstasy with which they greet the perfect in all its manifestations. They aredévotesof beauty in the religious as in every other scene.
But now ourmidinetteand hermamanenter a dusky unpretentious old church, where quietly they say their prayers and listen to the monotonous chanting of a single priest, reading matins in a little corner chapel. The two women cross themselves, and go out. In thePlace, the younger one stops to spend twopence for a spray of muguet—that delicate flower (the lily-of-the-valley) that is the special property of themidinettesof Paris, and that they love. On theirSaint Catherine’s Day (May 1st), no girl is without a little bunch of it as a “porte-bonheur” for her love affairs during the next year.
But themidinettecalls, “au ’voir”; and themamanreturns, “à ce soir!” And they disappear, the one to her shop, the other to her duties as concierge or storekeeper, and we are left in the Place alone. What about coffee? Let us take it here at the corner brasserie, where the old man with his napkin tucked in his chin is crumbling “crescents” and muttering imprecations at the government—which he attacks through theMatinorFigarospread upon his knees. A young man, with melancholy black moustaches and orange boots, is the only other client at this early hour. He refuses to eat, though acafé completis before him; and looks at his watch, and sighs. We know what is the matter withhim.
Considerate of the lady who is late, we choose a table on the other side—all are outdoors of course, in this Springtime of the year—and devote ourselves to discussing honey and rolls and the season’s styles in hosiery, which young persons strolling towards the boulevard benevolently offer for our inspection. Occasionally they pause, and graciously inquire if we “have need of someone?” And on our replying—with the proper mixture of apology and admiration—that all our wants seem to be attended to, pass on with a shrug of resignation.
Motor-buses are whirring by now, and a maze offiacres, taxis, delivery-boy’s bicycles, and heavy trucks skid round the slippery corner in dangerous confusion.The traffic laws of Paris are of the vaguest, and policemen are few and far between; all at once, the Place seems unbearably thick and full of noise. We call for ouraddition, exchange complaisances with the waiter, and depart—just as the young man with the orange boots, with a cry of “enfin!” tucks the hand of a bewitchingly pretty young lady (doubtless a mannequin) within his arm, and starts towards the Rue de la Paix.
The Rue de la Paix at half past nine in the morning does not intrigue us. We prefer to wait for it until the sensationalheure des rendez-vous, in the evening. Why not jump into a cab and bowl leisurely out to the Bois? It will be cool there, and quiet during the hour before the fashionablecavalierscome to ride. With a wary eye for a horse of reasonable solidity, we engage a blear-eyed Gaul to tow us to the Porte Dauphine. We like this Gaul above other Gauls, because his anxious flop-eared dog sitting next to him on the box gives every sign of liking him. And though, even before we have turned into the Champs Elysées, there have been three blood-curdling rows between cabby and various colleagues who presumed to occupy a place in the same street; though whips have been brandished and such ferocious epithets as “brother-in-law of a bantam!” “son of a pigeon-toed hen!” have been brandished without mercy by our remorseless Jehu, we take the reassuring word of his dog’s worshipping brown eyes that he is not a bad sort after all.
He cracks us out the Champs Elysées at a smartpace; yet we have time to gloat over the beauties of this loveliest of all avenues: its spacious gardens, its brilliant flower-plots, its quaint littleguignolsand donkey carriages for children. Vendors of jumping bunnies and squeaking pigs thread in and out the shady trees, showing their fascinating wares; and one does not wonder at the swarm of small people with their bright-ribboned nurses, who flock round to admire—and to buy.
This part of the avenue—from the Concorde to the Rond-Point—is given over to children; and all kinds of amusements, wise and unwise, are prepared for them. But by far the most popular are theguignols: those theatres-in-little, where Punch and Judy go through their harassing adventures, to the accompaniment of “c’est joli, ça!” and “tiens, que c’est chic!”; uttered by enthusiastic small French throats, seconded by applauding small French hands. For in Paris even the babies have their appreciation for the drama that is offered them before they can talk; and show it so spontaneously, yet emphatically, that one is arrested by their vehemence.
But we can take in these things only in passing, for Jehu and the flop-eared dog are carrying us on up the suavely mounting avenue, beyond the haughty portals of fashionable hotels and automobile housesde luxe; round the stately Arc de Triomphe, and into the Avenue du Bois. Here a sprinkling of governesses and their charges, old ladies, and lazy young men are ranged along in the stiff luxury of penny chairs. On a Sunday we might stop and take oneourselves, to watch the parade of toilettes and the lively Parisianjeunesseat its favourite game of “faire le flirt”; but this morning the terrace is half asleep, and above it the houses of American millionaires and famous ladies of the demi-monde turn forbidding closed shutters to our inquiring gaze. Jehu speeds us past them, and we alight at the Porte Dauphine, the principal entrance to the Bois.
Green grass, the glint of a lake, broad, sandy roads and intimate slimalléesgreet us, once within the gates; while all round and overhead are the slender, grey-green French poplars, fashioned into gracious avenues and seductive pathways, with its gay little restaurant at the end. Of all styles and architecture are these last: Swiss châlets, Chinese pagodas, Japanese tea-houses, and the typical Frenchpavillon; they have one common trait, however—that of serving atrocious food at a fabulous price. Let us abjure them, and wander instead along the quite expansive lake, to the rocks and miniature falls ofLes Rochers.
All through the Bois one is struck with the characteristic French passion for vistas. There is none of the natural wildness of Central Park, or the uninterrupted sweep of green fields that gives the charm of air and openness to the parks of London; but—though here in Paris we are in a “wood”—everywhere there is the elaborate simplicity of French landscape gardening: trees cut into tall Gothic arches, or bent into round, tunnel-like curves; brush trimmed precisely into formal box hedges; paths leading intoavenues, that in turn lead into other avenues—so that before, behind, and on every side there is that prolonged silver-grey perspective. One sees the same thing at Versailles and St. Cloud: in every French forest, for that matter. The artist cannot stay her hand, even for the hand of nature.
And so, in the Bois, rocks have been built into grottos, and trickling waterfalls trained to form cascades above them; and little lakes and islands have been inserted—everything, anything, that the artistic imagination could conceive, to enhance the sylvan scene for the critical actors who frequent it. Which reminds us that these last will be on view now—it is eleven o’clock, their hour for riding and the promenade. So let us leaveLes Rochers, and the greedy goats of thePré Catalan, and hasten back to the Avenue des Acaçias and the famous Sentier de Vertu.
Here, achicprocession ofélégantesand their admirers are strolling along, laughing and chatting as they come upon acquaintances, forming animated little groups, only to break up and wander on to join others. Cavaliers in smart English coats, or the dashing St. Cyr uniform, canter by; calling gay greeting to friends, for whose benefit they display an elaborately careless bit of clever horsemenshipen passant. Ladies and “half-ladies” in habits of startling yet somehow alluring cut and hue—heliotrope and brick pink are among the favourites—allow their mounts to saunter lazily along the allées, while their own modestly veiled eyes spy out prey. They are viewed with severity by thebonne bourgeoiseof the tortoise-shelllorgnettes and heavy moustache; who keeps her limousine within impressive calling distance, while she, with her fat poodle under her arm, waddles along ogling the beaux.
A doughty regiment of these there are: young men with marvellous waists and eager, searching eyes; middle-aged men with figures “well preserved,” and eyes that make a desperate effort at eagerness, but only succeed in looking tired; and then the old gallants, waxed and varnished, and gorgeously immaculate, from sandy toupée to gleaming pointed shoes—the three hours they have spent with the barber and in the scrupulous hands of their valet have not been in vain. They do the honours of theSentier, with a courtliness that brings back Louis Quatorze and the days of Ninon and the lovely Montespan.
But there are as lovely—and perhaps as naughty?—ladies among these who saunter leisurely down the grey-green paths today. In wonderfully simple, wonderfully complicatedtoilettes de matin, they stroll along in pairs—or again (with an oblique glance over the shoulder, oh a quite indifferent glance), carelessly alone with two or three little dogs. I read last week in one of the French illustrated papers a serious treatise on ladies’ dogs. It was divided into the three categories: “Dogs for morning,” “Dogs for afternoon,” “Dogs of ceremony”—meaning full-dress dogs. And the article gravely discussed the correct canine accessory that should be worn with each separate costume of theélégante’selaborate day. It omitted to add, however, the incidental value of thesecostly scraps of fuzz, as chaperones. But with a couple of dogs, as one pretty lady softly assured me, one can go anywhere, feelingquitesecure; and one’s husband, too—for of course he realizes that the sweet little beastsmustbe exercised!
So the conscientious ladies regularly “exercise” them; and if sometimes, in their exuberance, Toto and Mimi escape their distressed young mistresses, and must be brought back by a friend who “chanced” to be near at hand—who can cavil? And if the kind restorer walks a little way with the trio he has reunited, or sits with them for a few moments under the trees, why not? They are always three—Toto and Mimi and the lady—and one’s friends who may happen to pass know for themselves how hard dogs are to keep in hand!
So we have a series of gay, well-dressed couples wandering down the intimate allées, or scattered in the white iron chairs within the trees: a very different series from those who will be here at eleven o’clock tonight—and every night. The Bois is far too large to be policed, and the grotesque shapes that haunt it after dark—crouching, low-browed figures that slink along in the shadows, greedy for any sort of prey—make one shudder, even from the security of a closed cab. All about are the brilliant, bright-lit restaurants with their crowds of feasting sybarites; yet at the very door of these—waiting to fall upon them if they take six steps beyond the threshold—is that grisly, desperate band, some say of Apaches, others say monsters worse than those.
At all events, it is better in the evening to turn one’s eyes away from the shadowy paths, and towards the amusing tableaux to be seen in passing fiacres and taxis. To the more reserved Anglo-Saxon, French frankness of demonstration in affairs of the affections comes always as a bit of a shock. To see a lady reclining against the arm of a gentleman, as the two spin along the boulevard in an open horse-cab; to watch them, quite oblivious of the world looking on, ardently turn and kiss one another: this is a disturbing and meanly provocative scene to put before the susceptible American. No one else pays any attention to it—they have acted that scene so many times themselves; and when, in the friendly darkness of the Bois at night, all lingering discretion is thrown to the winds, and behind the cabby’s broad, habituated back anything and everything in the way of fervid love-making goes on—who cares? Except to smile sympathetically, and return to his own affair, more ardently than ever. The silhouettes one sees against taxi-windows and the dust-coloured cushions offiacresare utterly demoralizing to respectable American virtue.
Let us turn on the light of day, therefore, and in a spasm of prudence mount a penny-bus that traffics between the Étoile and the Latin Quarter. It is a flagrantfaux-pasto arrive in the Latin Quarter by way of anything more sumptuous than a penny-bus or a twopenny tram. It shrieks it from the cobbles, that one is a “nouveau”; and that, in the Quarter, is a disgrace too horrible to be endured.
We rock across the Pont Royal, then, on the precarious upper story of an omnibus; and wind along the narrow Rue du Bac, which, since our visit of early morning, has waked to fitful life in its old plaster and print shops. Second-hand dealers of all kinds flourish here, and the medley of ancient books, musty reliquaries, antique jewelry, and battered images minus such trifles as a nose or ear, makes the street into one continuous curiosity-shop. Until one reaches the varnish and modern bustle of the Bon Marché stores; then, when we have been shot through the weather-beaten slit of the Rue des Saints Pères, I insist that we shall climb down and go on foot up quaint, irregular Notre-Dame-des-Champs to the garden where I spent many joyous days as a student.
It is in a crooked little street which runs breathlessly for a block between Notre-Dame-des-Champs and the Boulevard Montparnasse—and there stops; leaving you with the insinuation that it has done its best to squeeze in on this frazzled boundary of the old Quarter, and that more cannot be expected of it. On one side of the abrupt block, rambles the one-timehôtelof the Duchesse de Chevreuse;intrigante, cosmopolitan, irresponsible lover of adventure, who kept Louis XIII’s court in a hubbub with her pranks and her inordinate influence over Queen Anne.
The grey court that has seen the trysts of Chalais, Louvigni, even of the great Richelieu himself, rests still intact; and they say the traditional secret passage also—leading from a hidden recess in the garden to thegrands palais. But that is only legend (which,by some vagary, still clings to the feelers of the practical twentieth century mind), and I have never seen it. Thehôtelis now covered yearly with a neat coat of yellow paint, and used as an apartment house; crowded by the usual rows of little Quarter shops: a cobbler’s, a blanchissage, a goldsmith’s on the East wing; the beaten-down door of an antiquary on the West: until its outraged painted bricks seem to bulge out over the thread of a side-walk, in continual effort to rub noses with thehôpitalopposite—the only other house of any age in the street.
One peep at the garden—and you will admit it is worth it, with its lovely plaintive iris, its pale wistaria, its foolish pattering fountain—and we turn towards the Boulevard and lunch. I have said this bit of a street along which we are walking is on the boundary of the old Quarter. Alas, in these days there is no Quarter. One tries to think there is, particularly if one is a new-comer to the Left Bank, and enthusiastic; but one learns all too soon that there is not. There are students, yes, and artists; and the cafés and paintshops and pretty grisettes that go with students and artists. But the quarter of Rudolph and Mimi, of Trilby and Svengali: can you find it in steam-heated apartments, where ladies in Worth gowns pour tea? Or in the thick blue haze about the bridge and poker games at the Café du Dôme?
The Quarter has passed; there remains only its name. And that we should use with a muttered “forgive us our trespasses”; for it is the name of romance, shifted onto commonplaceness.
Yet one can still enjoy there the romance of a delicious meal for two francs fifty; and there are any number of jealously hidden places from which to choose. Let us go to Henriette’s, this tiny hole-in-the-wall, where one passes the fragrant-steaming kitchen on the way to the little room inside, and calls a greeting to the cook—an old friend—where he stands, lobster-pink and beaming, over his copper sauce-pans. Back under a patched and hoary skylight the tables are placed; and a family of mild-mannered mice clamber out over the glass to peer inquiringly at the gluttons below—who eat at one bite enough cheese to keep any decently delicate mouse for a week.
We order an omeletteaux champignons, a Chateaubriand (corresponding to our tenderloin of steak) with pommes soufflés; as a separate vegetable,petits pois à la Française, and for dessert a heaping plate of wild strawberries to be eaten with one of these delectable brown pots of thickcrême d’Isigny—aih! It makes one exquisitely languid only to think of it, all that luscious food! We lean back voluptuously in our stiff little chairs, and gaze about us while waiting for it.
At the half dozen tables round us are seated the modern prototypes of Rudolph and Mimi: mildly boisterous American youths from the Beaux Arts and Julien’s; careworn English spinsters with freckles and paint-smudged fingers; a Russian couple, with curious “shocked” hair and vivid, roving black eyes; a stray Frenchman or two, probably shop-keepersfrom the Boulevard, and a trio of models—red-lipped, torrid-eyed, sinuously round, in their sheath-fitting tailored skirts and cheap blouses. They are making a nonchalant meal off bread and cheese, and a bottle ofvin ordinaire: evidently times are bad, or “ce bon garçonHarry’s” remittance has not come.
Proof of other bad times is in the charming frieze painted, in commemoration of the Queen of Hearts, by two girl artists of a former day, who worked out their over-due bill to the house in this decorative fashion. For the poverty, at least, of the traditional Quarter survives; though smothered into side streets and obscure “passages” by the self-styled “Bohemians” of Boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse. And one notices that the habitués of Henriette’s and of all the humbler restaurants have their own napkin-rings which they take from the rack as they come in; does it not save them ten centimes, an entire penny, on the charge forcouvert?
They have their own tobacco too, and roll their cigarettes with care not to spill a single leaf at the process; and you feel a heartless Dives to sit smoking your fragrant Egyptians after your luxurious meal and sipping golden Bénédictine at the considerable price of forty centimes (eight cents). Our more frugal neighbours, however, show no sign of envy, or indeed of interest of any sort; their careless indifference not only to us, but to their own meal and the desultory chatter of their comrades, speaks of long and familiar experience with both. Somehow they are depressing, these Rudolphs without theirvelveteens, these Mimis without their flowers and other romantic trappings of poverty; the hideous modern garments of the shabbily genteel only emphasize a sordid lack of petty cash.
I suggest that we run away from them, and hie us to the lilac-bushes and bewitchingbébésof the Jardin du Luxembourg; for in the realm of the greatartisteeven the babies contribute to the scene, and in their fascinating short frocks, and wee rose-trimmed bonnets, are a gladsome troupe of Lilliputians with whom to while away one’s melancholy. But you may have an inhuman apathy towards babies, and prefer to taxi out to St. Germain for a view of the terrace, and a glimpse en route of sadly lovely Malmaison—the memory-haunted home of Josephine. Or you may suggest the races—though I hope you won’t, because in France the sport is secondary; and mannequins are a dull race. I had rather you chose an excursion up the Seine, on one of the fussy little river-boats; though of course at St. Cloud we should be sure to find a blaring street fair in possession of the forest, and at Meudon the same: the actors must bring their booths and flying pigs into the very domain of Dame Nature herself; being no respecters of congruity where passion for the theatric is concerned.
But we should have the cool vistas of the inner forest, and the stately satisfaction of historic stone stairs and mellow creamy-grey urns and statues through the trees; or we can go down the river instead to old Vincennes, and have a look at the grimprison-castle that has sheltered many a noble in disgrace. Which shall it be? To use Madame La France’s borrowed Spanish expression: I am “tout à votre disposition.”