Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 by Patrick Fraser Tytler (beach read book .txt) 📖

the other is a dazzling but sorry paste in a brilliant setting. [47]"Un Français," says M. de Stael, with great truth, "scait encore parler, lors meme il n'a point d'idees;" and the reason why a Frenchman can do so is, because ideas, which are the essential requisites in conversation to any other man, are not so to him. He is in possession of many substitutes, composed of a few of those set phrases and accommodating sentences which fit into any subject; and these, mixed up with appropriate nods, significant gestures, and above all, with the characteristic shrugging of the shoulders, are ever ready at hand when the tide of his ideas may happen to run shallow.

The perpetual cheerfulness of the French, under almost every situation, is well known, and has been repeatedly remarked. One great secret by which they contrive to preserve this invariable levity of mind, is probably this extraordinary talent of theirs for a particular kind of conversation. An Englishman, engaged in the business and duties of life, even at his hours of relaxation, is occupied in thinking upon them. In the midst of company he is often an insulated being; his mind, refusing intercourse with those around him, retires within itself. In this manner he inevitably becomes, even in his common hours, grave and serious, and if under misfortunes, perhaps melancholy and morose. A Frenchman is in every respect a different being: He cannot be grave or unhappy, because he never allows himself time to become so. His mind is perpetually busied with the affairs of the moment. If he is in company, he speaks, without introduction, to every gentleman in the room. Any thing, the most trivial, serves him for a hook on which to hang his story; and this generally lasts as long as he has breath to carry him on. He recounts to you, the first hour you meet with him, his whole individual history; diverges into anecdotes about his relations, pulls out his watch, and under the cover shews you the hair of his mistress, apostrophizes the curl—opens his pocket-book, insists upon your reading his letters to her, sings you the song which he composed when he was au desespoir at their parting, asks your opinion of it, then whirls off to a discussion on the nature of love; leaves that the next moment to philosophize upon friendship, compliments you, en passant, and claims you for his friend; hopes that the connection will be perpetual, and concludes by asking you to do him the honour of telling him your name. In this manner he is perpetually occupied; he has a part to act which renders serious thought unnecessary, and silence impossible. If he has been unfortunate, he recounts his distresses, and in doing so, forgets them. His mind never reposes for a moment upon itself; his secret is to keep it in perpetual motion, and, like a shuttlecock, to whip it back and forward with such rapidity, that although its feathers may have been ruffled, and its gilding effaced by many hard blows, yet neither you nor he have time to discover it.

Nothing can present a stronger contrast between the French and English character, and nothing evinces more clearly the superiority of the French in conversation, and the art of amusement, than the scenes which take place in the interior of a French diligence. They who go to France and travel in their own carriages are not aware of what they lose.—The interior of a French diligence, if you are tolerably fortunate in your company, is a perfect epitome of the French nation.—When you enter a public coach in England, it is certainly very seldom that, in the course of the few hours you may remain in it, you meet with an entertaining companion. Chance, indeed, may now and then throw a pleasant man in your way; but these are but thinly sown amongst those sour and silent gentlemen, who are your general associates, and who, now and then eyeing each other askance, look as if they could curse themselves for being thrown into such involuntary contiguity.

The scene in a French diligence is the most different from all this that can be conceived. Every thing there is life, and motion, and joy.—The coach generally holds from ten to twelve persons, and even then is sufficiently roomy.—The moment you enter you find yourself on terms of the most perfect familiarity with the whole set of your travelling companions. In an instant every tongue is at work, and every individual bent upon making themselves happy for the moment, and contributing to the happiness of their fellow travellers. Talking, joking, laughing, singing, reciting,—every enjoyment which is light and pleasurable is instantly adopted.—A gentleman takes a box from his pocket, opens it, and with a look of the most finished politeness, presents it, full of sweetmeats, to the different ladies in succession. One of these, in gratitude for this attention, proposes that which she well knows will be agreeable to the whole party, some species of round game like our cross-purposes, involving forfeits. The proposal is carried by acclamation,—the game is instantly begun, and every individual is included: Woe be now to the aristocracy of the interior! Old and young, honest and dishonest, respectable and disrespectable, all are involved in undistinguished confusion—but all are content to be so, and happy in the exchange. The game in the meantime proceeds, and the different forfeits become more numerous. The generality of these ensure, indeed, from their nature, a punctuality of performance. To kiss the handsomest woman in the party, to pay her a compliment in some extempore effusion, or to whisper a confidence (faire une confidence) in her ear—all these are hardly enjoined before they are happily accomplished. But others, which it would be difficult to particularize, are more amusing in their consequences, and less easy, in their execution.

The ludicrous effect of this scene is much heightened by its being often carried on in the dark, for night brings no cessation; and we have ourselves, in travelling in this manner in the diligence, engaged in many a game of forfeits where, it is not too much to say, that our play-fellows, of both sexes, were certainly nearer to the grave than the cradle, being somewhere between fifty and fourscore. The scenes which then take place, the undistinguished clamours of young and old, the audible salutes from every quarter, which point to the perpetual succession of the forfeits, altogether compose a spectacle, which to a stranger is the most unexpected and extraordinary that can be possibly imagined.

The conversation of a Frenchman, who possesses wit and information, is certainly superior to that of a clever man of any other country. It has a variety and playfulness, which, upon subjects of taste or fancy, or literature, delights and fascinates; but even their common conversation upon the most trivial matters is of a superior order, as far as amusement goes. However shallowly they may think upon a subject, they never fail to express themselves well. This is the case equally with those of both sexes. It is true, certainly, that in their subjects for conversation, they indulge in a wider range of selection; and in consequence, far more frequently without evincing the slightest scruple, overstep the bounds of decorum and delicacy. This is the inevitable effect of the peculiarity above noticed, that they must constantly converse; as their appetite for conversation is inordinate, their taste is necessarily less nice; provided they continue in motion, they are careless about the ground over which they travel. One unhappy consequence of this certainly is, that such carelessness extends to the women, even amongst the highest and best bred classes; and that these ideas of delicacy and tenderness, with which we are always accustomed to regard, in this country, the female mind, are shocked and grated against by the occurrence of scenes, the employment of expressions, and the mention of books which tend rather to disgust than to amuse, and which destroy in a moment that female fascination, which can never exist without that first and most material ingredient, modesty.

The science of conversation in France, is not, as with us, confined principally to the higher classes, but extends to the whole body of the people. The reason is, that the lower ranks in that country invariably imitate the manners, style of society, and mode of conversation used by the higher orders. The lower ranks in England converse, no doubt; but then their conversation, and the subjects upon which it is employed, is exactly fitted to the rank they hold in society.

In speaking of the literature of France, we shall have occasion to remark, that there is nothing in that country like an ancient or national poetry. This is perhaps not so much to be attributed to the excessive ignorance of the peasantry, as to the circumstance, that from the French peasantry invariably imitating the manners of the higher orders, there is no adaption of the manners of the labouring orders to the simple rank they fill in society. The innocence of rural life is thus lost. The shepherd, the peasant girl, the rustic labourer, whom you meet in France, are all in some measure artificial beings. They express themselves to any stranger they meet with ease and politeness, with a point and a vivacity which is certainly striking; but which is, of all things, the farthest removed from nature: and it is the consequence of this interchange which has taken place,—this imitation of the manners of the higher orders by the lower classes of the peasantry—that we shall in vain look for any thing in France like a simple national poetry. The truth, the simplicity, the nature, which ought to form it, are not to be found amongst any classes of the French people. The poetry of France, both ancient and modern, that of Ronsard and Marot, in earlier days; and that of Boileau, Racine, Corneille and Voltaire, in more modern times, bears the marks of having been formed in the court. If, for instance, in Scotland, the lower ranks, the labouring classes, like those of France, had transplanted the fictitious manners of the higher classes into the innocence of their cottage, or the sequestered solitude of their vallies—where, under such a state of things, could there ever have arisen such gifted spirits as Burns, or Ramsay, or Ferguson? and where should we have found, that truth, that beauty, that genuine nature, in the lives and manners of our peasantry, which has not only furnished such poets with some of their finest subjects, but has instructed these peasants themselves to pour out, in unpremeditated strains, those ancient and beautiful songs, which art and education could never have taught them; and which, in the progress of time, have formed that unrivalled national poetry, perhaps one of the brightest gems in the diadem of Scottish genius. But we must return to France.

The French have been always celebrated for their natural gaiety of character. One exception from this is material to be noticed. It must strike you the moment you look into the countenances of the soldiery, or examine the air and manner of the generality of the lower officers. A dark and gloomy expression, if not a suspicious, and often savage appearance, is their characteristic feature; and although this is disguised by occasional sallies of loud and intemperate mirth, these sallies are more like the desperate and reckless exertions of a troop of banditti, than the temperate and unpremeditated cheerfulness of a regular soldiery. Nor is this look confined entirely to the military. The habits of the whole nation are changed; but yet, with all this alteration, there remains enough of their characteristic gaiety to distinguish them from every other people in Europe.

Their excessive frivolity is perhaps even more remarkable than their gaiety; they have not sufficient steadiness for the uninterrupted avocations of graver life. In the midst of the most serious or deep