Eugene Delacroix, in 1855, recorded in his notebook that, in the train from Dieppe to Rouen, there were three Englishmen in the first-class carriage whom ‘you would suppose comfortably off. They were very badly dressed, especially one who was really dirty, his clothes were even torn. I do not understand this complete contrast with their former habits; I noticed the same thing on my trip to Baden and Strasbourg. A day or two later, when I was making my examination of the pictures, I met Lord Elcho, and even his clothes were not particularly clean. The English have changed entirely and we French, on the other hand, have adopted many of their former habits.’
‘There are many points, however,’ continued Murray, ‘in which our character is misunderstood by foreigners. The morose sullenness attributed by them to Englishmen is, in perhaps nine cases out of ten, nothing more than involuntary silence, arising from his ignorance of foreign languages, or at least from his want of sufficient fluency to make himself rapidly understood, which prevents his enjoying society. If an Englishman were fully aware how much it increased the pleasure and profit of travelling to have made some progress in foreign languages before he sets foot on the Continent, no one would think of quitting home until he had devoted at least some months to hard labour with grammars and dictionaries.’
Our traveller being young and rich will be allowed to feel at ease on the Continent, however, and throwing aside such pompous strictures with a smile of superior amusement, joyfully commit himself to the diversions of Paris, the undoubted capital city of the civilized world.
CHAPTER FOUR
PARIS
Before anything else can be done in the capital our impatient traveller must either take or send his provisional passport to police headquarters, ‘where the original will be given in exchange for it. It is better to send a valet de place or commissionaire for it than to go for it: the commissionaire being known to the officials is more likely to be attended to than a stranger, speaking French perhaps scarcely intelligible. The commissionaire may, it is true, play false, and declare that the passport is not arrived, in the hope of detaining the traveller at his hotel; and the best way to prevent this is to promise him an extra douceur in the event of his securing the passport at once. The stranger who undertakes to do this for himself will find it a very disagreeable and tiresome business, the passport offices being open only at fixed hours, being situated in distant parts of the town, and being beset by crowds of applicants.’
Having seen to these formalities our traveller is now free to enjoy the town, and we will assume he has already found accommodation, because Murray’s guide tells him that there are nearly four thousand hotels in Paris, as well as six thousand cafés and numerous restaurants. Concerning the latter: ‘The smallness of the quantity of solid food supplied is a difficulty for the English. A card is handed the diner on entering, containing a priced list of all the dishes supplied, and the waitress (for the service is performed by modestly-dressed females) marks those ordered, and expects a few sous to be left on the table for her.’ Murray goes on to say that: ‘Ladies may dine at Restaurants mentioned in this handbook without the slightest impropriety or feeling of annoyance.’
In a possibly idealized version of street life we are told that on fine summer evenings, ‘coffee, ices, etc., are supplied out of doors, and the streets facing the principal cafés, the Boulevards, Champs Elysées, etc., are covered with little tables and chairs, occupied by groups of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen sipping coffee and ice, or smoking cigars’. Our traveller must have fitted with alacrity into such a scene, though his Baedeker advised tourists to ‘scrupulously avoid these cafés where the chairs placed outside in summer are in unpleasant proximity with the gutters’.
Paris, to paraphrase Baedeker the greatest treasure-house of art and industry in the world, possessed ‘English hotels, English professional men, English “valets de place”, and English shops; but the visitor who is dependent upon these is necessarily deprived of many opportunities of becoming acquainted with the most interesting characteristics of Paris.’
On installing himself at his hotel the traveller will of course note the following: ‘Articles of Value should never be kept in the drawers or cupboards at hotels. The traveller’s own trunk is probably safer; but it is better to entrust them to the landlord, from whom a receipt should be required, or to send them to a bankers.’
For those who would wander freely, a paragraph was provided concerning public safety: ‘In the E. quarter are numerous manufactories and the dwellings of those who work in them. Here was the hotbed of insurrection and the terror of Paris in troubled times.’ Baedeker remarks that the annual consumption of wine in Paris was thirty-nine million gallons, or thirty gallons a head for the whole population. He also tells us that the Parisian police ‘are so efficient and well-organised, that street-robberies are less frequent than in most other large towns. Beware, however, of pickpockets, who are as adroit as the police are vigilant, and are particularly apt to victimise strangers.’
Our traveller on his perambulations may think to pick up a trifle or two at an auction, but Baedeker has another word in his ear: ‘Strangers are cautioned against making purchases in person, as trickery is too frequently practised, but a respectable agent may be employed to bid for any article they may desire to purchase.’
Should the traveller wish to go to the theatre, warning is given against ticket touts, ‘who frequently loiter in the vicinity and endeavour to impose on the public … The attendants of the cloakrooms are often troublesome in their efforts to earn a “pourboire”. One of their usual attentions is to bring footstools, for the use of ladies; and they have a still more objectionable practice of bringing the cloaks and shawls to the box before the conclusion of the performance in order to secure their gratuity in good time.’
The theatre is said to present a highly characteristic part of Parisian life, but, in some, ‘ladies are not admitted to the orchestra stalls’. Murray tells us that most of the forty theatres in Paris are devoted to light comedy with music, but ‘the subjects and treatment of many of the pieces render them unfit for the ears of English ladies’.
As for the cafés chantants, spectators sit in the open air, and ‘listen to singing and music by performers outrageously overdressed … The company is not the most select, and the performance tends to be immoral. Respectable people keep aloof.’
While the farces at the Théâtre du Palais Royal are said to be of a character ‘not always exceptionable’, the concerts of the Conservatoire de Musique ‘enjoy a European celebrity. The highest order of classical music, by Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, etc., as well as by the most celebrated French and Italian composers, is performed with exquisite taste and precision.’
Our traveller might well look in at one of the many balls given in the summer because, though the society ‘is by no means select, they deserve to be visited by the stranger on account of the gay, brilliant, and novel spectacle they present. The rules of decorum are tolerably well observed, but it need hardly be said that ladies cannot go to them with propriety. Dancing takes place every evening, but the place is frequented by different people on different evenings when many handsome, richly dressed women of the “demimonde” and exquisites of the boulevards assemble here, while on the other evenings, when the admission is 3 francs, and women enter without payment, the society is still less respectable.’