But they were all united in their longing for the skin of a certain wild cat from South America, called chinchilla. There were only twenty of them in the whole of Europe, apparently, and only four or five Parisennes had the good fortune to possess one.
With the advent of spring, shawls reappeared from the cupboards; they were now worn three-corner fashion. As for hats, small to begin with, or replaced by turbans, they soon assumed the most varied shapes, and sometimes the most preposterous ones. Hats a TAnglaise, toques like Doctor GalTs, headgear a la Sphynx, helmets a la Mirierve, hats a la Clorinde, a la Babet, a la Glaneuse, top hats a la Pamela garnished with a peak and, if desired, a 'curtain 7 -masterly confections of straw, felt or satin, ranging from the minute bibi to the huge poke bonnet, there was something for every taste, even, alas, for the worst!
Paris offered innumerable opportunities to the coquettes wishing to show off these masterpieces, but the finest was undoubtedly the Promenade de Longchamp during the three days before Easter. The traditional parade was less brilliant than under the old regime, being hardly more than a procession of carriages, cabriolets and horsemen, among the latter a wag or two riding a donkey. But for the women Longchamp still had its prestige; they longed to shine there. £ Ah, my dear/ sighed one, Tve been told I must not spend more than 20,000 francs on that day, including my carriage. Isn't it mean?'
But in spite of their husband's niggardliness, the ladies* dresses were as magnificent as ever, and their carriages most luxurious. Some coach-builders agreed among themselves to obtain a harmony of colours. In 1805, for instance, the interior of many carriages was upholstered in pale blue, and this was one of the most successful parades ever seen. Starting at eleven in the morning, it went on till nightfall. With the return of the procession in view, Garchi had opened new rooms at Franscati, and they were packed all day long.
Press reports, however, were somewhat critical. Too many soldiers keeping order, it was said, a fashion review must not be just a 'review*. And then instructions had been carried out with disagreeable severity. Under pretence of preventing pedestrians from crossing the roadway, they had been roughly handled, as the Prefect of Police was obliged to admit. In after years he drew attention himself to the exaggerated zeal of the men on duty. One infantryman drew his sword on an individual who was not moving fast enough; a citizen had his coat torn; two guardsmen ran after a man on horseback and pricked him with their bayonets.
Even if one is living under the sign of Mars, such an abuse of the strong hand was bound to scandalize peaceable people, and old Parisians looked back with regret to the days when a few pickets of mounted police were enough to keep onlookers in order while Guimard's coach drove along the Grand Avenue of the Champs-OElysees, with a louis d'or emblazoned on it, and the porcelain chariot of the Beaupre went past, with a prince of the blood for equerry.
CHAPTER XIV. PROMENADES AND PLEASURES OF PARIS
Pedestrianism in Paris - Fashionable walks - Coblentz ~ Boulevard parades - Shops and cafes of the Palais-Royal — Camba-ceres's double — From Tiuoli to Frascati — The Mysee within everybody's reach - Encumbering architects-The Seine and its embankments - Cold baths and morals
THE newspapers of 1806 tell o£ a certain Calixte Vilcot, an old man of 102 years, who had just walked from Valenciennes to the Tuileries to beg a small pension of Napoleon, and had returned home the same way. 1
Although not all such great walkers, the Parisians of that day used their legs far more than we do. As we have seen, the dearth of carriages often forced them to do so, but they did not complain too bitterly, for however muddy and malodorous it might be, the capital offered unrivalled pleasures of the eye to those exploring it. Everybody was agreed on this at the time. No provincial entering Paris for the first time but was captivated on the spot, like M. Musard, one of the few lively characters in Picard^s boring plays. He had hardly been set lose in our streets before he had forgotten his business, his lawsuits, his daughter's marriage, his wife's objurgations, to give himself up to the joys of this new paradise.
Old Parisians themselves could never resist the pleasure of strolling about, to which they devoted an enormous part of their daily routine, and the women indulged in it as well as the men, in spite of their light shoes, the gutters and the clumsy paving-stones. 'Walking is in fashion, these first fine days/ says the Journal de Paris in 1808, 'even for fair ladies not accustomed to showing themselves. From noon to four o'clock they may be seen inspecting the novelties displayed on the boulevards, seated near the Theatre des Panoramas, or resting after a walk at the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne.' To get an idea of the society of that day, therefore, we must take a look at its usual meeting-places, and we may begin with the boulevards just referred to.
1 He obtained a pension of 600 francs a year. But an annuity granted to a centenarian can never be a very ruinous present.
They had changed little in appearance since the old regime, having preserved their double row of elms and their side-walks of beaten earth. The Consulate had, however, replaced the ditches that bordered them by wooden barriers to protect pedestrians from the traffic, and the Emperor had the whole expanse between the Madeleine and the Pavilion de Hanovre levelled and repaved. In this area the world of fashion frequented only the Petit Coblentz, a few yards from the Boulevard des Italians, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Chaussee d'Antin. It was there that the emigres of 1791 had come to take leave of their friends before going to join the army of the Princes, and Coblentz, whose name had survived their unfortunate escapade, was still the place where it was good to be seen.
'People have been going there for the last twelve years/ says a chronicler. Tor twelve whole years iVe seen the same chairs there, the same Papas, the same daughters. Between nine and ten o'clock is the time to go there, to rest from the burden of the day and take the air, or rather, to be suffocated with heat in a narrow pathway furnished with four rows of chairs, in the midst of the crowd of visitors jostling one another, cheek by jowl, squeezed together and moving forward at the rate of about an inch a minute. When you enter the walk you feel as though you were entering a stove; you can't breathe till you are out of it again. After this delightful half-hour you go and eat ices at Frascati or the Jardin Turc, and talk your fill about the pretty women youVe just seen at Coblentz and the good jokes youVe heard there/
The fame of the Jardin Turc, a big cafe with shady terraces that were the delight of family parties, takes us to the other side of Paris, towards the popular Boulevard du Temple, the home not only of the theatres but of the tightrope walkers and tumblers, where ever since the eighteenth century a sort of perpetual fair had been carried on.
You could never have read a Guide to Paris, or an account of the travels of an English or German tourist, if you were unaware of the marvels to be met with in those quarters,
from the Jongleurs Indians- great sword-swallowers — to the Espagnol incombustible, who drank boiling oil and walked barefoot on red-hot iron.
De Jouy, Prudhomme and Kotzebue all delight in giving us details of the exploits of the Petite Tourneuse, who spun round like a top for half an hour at a time, and the boy that turned cart-wheels between two candle-ends. They stopped to look at the dwarfs, at the five-legged sheep, the two-headed calves, the she-monkey with her tits painted pink 'for the information of connoisseurs', and the girl with a beard as long as a capuchin monk's. 'No trickery there', declares Kotzebue, tf l examined it very closely/ And we know how meticulous was our German.
They were equally dumbfounded by Jacques de Falaise> the eater of frogs, by Munito, the wise dog that told fortunes by cards, by the duels between flies, armed with pins for swords, and by the liliputian chariot races with fleas for horses. 1