Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2. Edwards Henry Sutherland
United States than amongst us.”
In a general way the resident American population of Paris consists of the Diplomatic body, bankers, families who have come for the education of their children, and artists eager to study the masterpieces of the Parisian galleries. The American nation is accused of being devoid of artistic sentiment; but M. André Léo stoutly protests that “such a criticism passed upon a new people, who have been obliged to occupy themselves before everything with work and industry, is too hasty. American artists already exist; and already their efforts and their ambitions foretell the development of that noble and precious human faculty the germ of which exists in every people and every man, but which necessitates a certain leisure and a certain mental education.”
Apart from the American residing in Paris, and the American who, binding himself to the nation by more than lengthened residence, has married into some French family – an occurrence by no means rare – there is the flying American visitor to Paris, whose headquarters are the Grand Hotel on the Boulevard des Italiens. This establishment, by its central position, its interior arrangements, its luxury and its comfort, enjoys an enormous reputation on the other side of the Atlantic. The Yankee leaves New York for the Grand Hotel. It is not till he passes its threshold that he feels himself on terra firma again; it is here that he finds out where he is and gets his information. If his means or his projects permit it, he installs himself at this hotel for three or four months; if not, he goes on to some other hotel or boarding-house, or else rents an apartment to live by himself. If you enter the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, ascend the portico steps, and, making your way into the stately readingroom, look out of the window for five minutes, you will see that the innumerable vehicles which every few seconds stop at the hotel deposit ten Americans to one Englishman.
From this centre the tourist easily gets to all those points of the city to which necessity or curiosity impels him. The first visit he pays is probably to his banker – to Bowles and Devritt, perhaps, in the Rue de la Paix, or to Norton’s in the Rue Auber. Once he banked with the firm of Rothschild, but now no longer. During the American war M. de Rothschild’s attitude in reference to the planters was by no means neutral, and this political indiscretion has cost him his American clients.
When the New York party has cashed its cheque at the American bank – which is quite a rendezvous for trans-Atlantics and at which all the American newspapers can be seen – the feminine element hastens to visit all the most fashionable shops. The ladies are eager to purchase, at comparatively low prices, those Parisian costumes which their own native custom-house raises to prices so exorbitant. Dressed ere long in the richest and newest fashions, they step with their male companions into a carriage and drive to the Bois de Boulogne; then they go to the opera, to spectacles of every kind, and to the Legation. If there happens to be a sovereign on the throne, they put their names down for presentation at the Tuileries and order a court costume. For it must be confessed that the Americans are fond of the pomps of this world, and that, Republicans as they profess to be, they have no prejudice against kings and princes outside their own country. The monarchs of other nations neither shock nor terrify them. And the American tourist, apart from the question of political sentiment, likes to see everything and do everything before he recrosses the Atlantic. If an American family visits a land where it is the fashion to be presented at court, they will feel humiliated and ashamed should they have to confess afterwards to their compatriots that they missed the presentation.
Under the last Empire the American visitors to Paris showed an eagerness for court-presentations which would have entitled them to a place in Thackeray’s Book of Snobs – which, nevertheless, directly or indirectly, embraces pretty nearly the whole human species. But there were a certain number of Americans then in France who got acclimatised to the splendours of the court and became habitual guests at imperial residences. The drawing-room of the United States minister is naturally the centre of meeting for American society in Paris. “The aspect and tone of these assemblies,” says a French writer, “is at once less solemn and colder than our French social gatherings. The necessity of being previously presented exists in this democratic society just as it does in England, though on the other hand American conversation and behaviour bear a natural impress of indifference and freedom, not even to the exclusion, perhaps, of a little coarseness.”
Curiously enough, the Americans, although they despise or affect to despise social and genealogical distinctions in their own country, turn to some extent into aristocrats during the voyage across the Atlantic to Europe. Frenchmen have noticed that if you wish to be presented to their minister or at one of their drawing-rooms in Paris, you must never forget your ancestry. “A certain author of my acquaintance,” says André Léo, “a man of genuine fame, was sufficiently astonished, on reading his American letter of introduction, to find that it recommended him much less on his own account than on that of his grandfather. This is not an isolated case; it results from a law much more human than national, which consists in particularly prizing what one does not possess. The Americans, a people without ancestors, naturally hold race distinctions in high esteem. They boast, one against the other, of belonging to the first founders of the colonies, and even in their own country these pretensions sometimes provoke laughter… As to nobilary titles, if you possess any, be particularly careful to let them be known, and rest assured that when once they have been declared the Americans will not fail to apply them to you. These titles will win for you sweet glances, and should you be contemplating marriage will turn the scale in your favour with those blonde beauties who, for the most part, have Californian dowries; for these Republican young women think that a ducal coronet sits marvellously well on blonde hair, and that the title of Countess is the finishing ornament required by an elegant lady. Hence it is that at Paris numerous alliances are contracted between the France of other days and the America of to-day.”
In the United States, so soon as a merchant has done some great stroke of business, or has pierced a big vein of ore in his mine, or has seen the petroleum spouting up on his land too fast for an adequate supply of barrels, his daughters are consumed with a desire to visit Europe. They sail thither, accompanied by the father, who pretends to despise the Continent, but who, inwardly, is scarcely less curious to explore it than his fair-haired children. And as a matter of fact the Americans may well be desirous to see that region of the world whence they derive everything but their liberty and their wealth. For their religion, their language, their literature, their arts and sciences, their memories, and the very blood which courses in their veins, they are indebted to Europe. In America, although an enormous number of books and newspapers are published, the English and French classics, not to mention the best English and French modern authors, form the foundation of every good library, and even the native writers fashion themselves after European models.
As regards the American families residing in Paris for the education of their children, it is music and the French language which they have chiefly in view. Some years ago M. André Léo observed that young American girls in Paris received a much severer education than their brothers. The instruction of the daughters “is, or appears, very complex; that of the sons much less so, for as a rule, having their own fortune to make, they early precipitate themselves into commercial life. But the young girl, whether intended for an instructress or working merely for the development and adornment of her person, devotes herself to studies which amongst us would pass for pedantic. Some of them learn Latin, algebra, geometry, and even attack without alarm more special sciences. Yet look at them and be reassured. The care of their toilette has not suffered from all this, and the accusations of ungracefulness cast against learned women fall before the display of their luxurious frivolity. See if the waves of silk, of muslin, of lace, which surround them are less abundant on that account; if the details of their exterior show a lesser degree of feminine art, if the whole has a lesser freshness.” This writer proceeds to insist on the superiority of the American woman over her male compatriot. The explanation is, according to him, that at fourteen years of age the American boy shuts up his books to enter the office of his father or some other merchant, and consecrates his whole intelligence to commercial speculations; whereas the young girl pursues her studies, strengthens them sometimes by teaching, and, spinster or wife, has always abundant leisure for mental exercise. The one point on which, in M. André’s view, the studious American woman exposes herself to reproach, is that hitherto she has not used her intellectual superiority for the furtherance of her own dignity and independence.
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