The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860. Various
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p>The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860 / A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
THE FRENCH CHARACTER
The American character is now generally acknowledged to be the most cosmopolitan of modern times; and a native of this country, all things being equal, is likely to form a less prescriptive idea of other nations than the inhabitants of countries whose neighborhood and history unite to bequeathe and perpetuate certain fixed notions. Before the frequent intercourse now existing between Europe and the United States, we derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous. All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism, strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice; for the chance was that the one specimen of the Grand Nation familiar to our childhood proved a poor émigré who gained a precarious livelihood as a dancing-master, cook, teacher, or barber, who was profuse of smiles, shrugs, bows, and compliments, prided himself on la belle France, played the fiddle, and took snuff. A more dignified view succeeded, when we read "Télémaque," so long an initiatory text-book in the study of the language, blended as its crystal style was in our imaginations with the pure and noble character of Fénelon. Perhaps the next link in the chain of our estimate was supplied by the bust of Voltaire, whose withered, sneering physiognomy embodies the wit and indifference, the soulless vagabondage that forms the worst side of the national mind. As patriotic sentiment awakened, the disinterested enthusiasm of Lafayette, woven, as it is, into the record of the struggle which gave birth to our republic, yielded another and more attractive element to the fancy portrait. Then, as our reading expanded, came the tragic chronicle of the first French Revolution and the brilliant and dazzling melodrama of Napoleon, the traditions so pathetic and sublime of gifted women, the tableaux so exciting to a youthful temper of military glory. And thus, by degrees, we found ourselves bewildered by the most vivid contrasts and apparently irreconcilable traits, until the original idea of a Frenchman expanded to the widest range of associations, from the ingenious devices of a mysterious cuisine to the brilliant manoeuvres of the battle-field; infinite female tact, rare philosophic hardihood, inimitable bon-mots, exquisite millinery, consummate generalship, holy fortitude, refined profligacy, and intoxicating sentiment,—Ude, Napoleon, Madame Récamier, Pascal, Ninon de I'Enclos, and Rousseau. Casual associations and desultory reading thus predispose us to recognize something half comical and half enchanting in French life; and it depends on accident, when we first visit Paris, which view is confirmed. The society of one of those benign savans who attract the sympathy and win the admiration of young students may yield a delightful and noble association to our future reminiscences; or an unmodified experience of cynical hearts joined to scenical manners may leave us nothing to regret, upon our departure, save the material advantages there enjoyed. But whoever knows life in Paris, unrelieved by some consistent and individual purpose, will find it a succession of excitements, temporary, yet varied,—full of the agreeable, yet barren of consecutive interest and satisfactory results,—admirable as a recreative hygiene, deplorable as a permanent resource; their inevitable consequence being a faith in the external, a dependence on the immediate, and a habit of vagrant pleasure-seeking, which must at last cloy and harden the manly soul. For this very reason, however, the scenes, characters, and society there exhibited are prolific of suggestion to the philosophic mind.
In every phase of life, manners, and action, we see a characteristic excellence in detail and process, and an equally remarkable deficiency in grand practical idea and consistent moral sentiment. The French chemists have the art to extract quinine from Peruvian bark and conserve the juices of meats; but one of their most patriotic writers calls attention to the wholly diverse motives addressed by Napoleon and Nelson to their respective followers. "Soldiers," exclaimed the former, "from the summit of those Pyramids forty ages are looking down upon you." "England," said the latter, "expects every man to do his duty." In Paris, the science of dissection is perfect; in London, that of nutrition;—Dumas has reduced plagiarism to a fine art; Cobbett made common-sense a social lever;—a British merchant or statesman attaches his name to a document in characters of such individuality that the signature is known at a glance; a French official invents a flourish so intricate that the forger's ingenuity is baffled in the attempt to imitate it;—government, on one side of the Channel, employs a taster to detect adulteration in wine whose sensitive palate is a fortune; on the other, the hereditary fame of a brewery is the guaranty of the excellence of ale.
This minute observance of detail has made the French leaders in fashion; it directs invention to the minutiæ of dress, and confirms the sway of the conventional, so as to give la mode the force of social law to an extent unknown elsewhere. The tyranny and caprice of fashion were as characteristic in Montaigne's day as at present. "I find fault with their especial indiscretion," he says, "in suffering themselves to be so imposed upon and blinded by the authority of the present custom as every month to alter their opinion." "In this country," writes Yorick, "nothing must be spared for the back; and if you dine on an onion, and lie in a garret seven stories high, you must not betray it in your clothes."
The superiority of the French in the minor philosophy of life was curiously exemplified during our Revolutionary War. The octogenarians of Rhode Island used to expatiate on the remarkable difference between the troops of France and those of England when quartered among them. The former speedily made a series of little arrangements, and fell naturally into a pleasant routine, making the best of everything, adapting themselves to the ways and prejudices of the inhabitants, and, in a word, becoming assimilated at once to a new mode of life and form of society; their wit, cheerfulness, and gallantry are yet proverbial in that region. The English, on the other hand, even when in full possession of the country, made but an awkward use of their privileges, were ill-at-ease, failed to recognize anything genial in the habits and manners even of the Tory families. While the French officers introduced the mysteries of their cuisine, and brightened many a rustic household with song, anecdote, dance, and conversation, the English complained of the simple viands, regretted London fogs and beer, and made themselves and their hosts, whether forced or voluntary, uncomfortable. They exhibited no tact or facility in improving the resources at hand, and relied only on brute force to win advantage. We beheld the same contrast recently in the Crimea; while exposure and impatience thinned the ranks of the brave islanders, their Gallic allies constructed roads, dug where they could not build a shelter, and ingeniously prepared various dishes from a meagre larder, fighting off, meantime, chagrin and ennui with as much alacrity as they did Cossacks.
Finesse characterizes servants not less than courtiers, the cab-driver as well as the notary, the composition of a dish as well as the drift of a comedy. This quality seems a result of the conflict of intelligences in a state of great, material civilization; nowhere is it more observable than in Paris life. What bullyism is to the English, shrewdness to the Yankee, and intrigue to the Italian, is finesse, which is a union of insight and address, to the French. This normal attribute is another proof how the economy of Gallic life is reduced to an art. It is the expression in manners of Rochefoucauld's maxims, of Richelieu's policy, of Talleyrand's cunning. It is favored by the tendency to minuteness of excellence and love of system before noted. To understand what superior range is afforded to such a principle in France, it is only requisite to consult the memoirs of a celebrated woman, or even an old Guide or Picture of Paris, such as in former days the provincial gentlemen used to study over their breakfast, in order to learn the savoir vivre of the metropolis. Itineraries of other cities merely describe streets, public institutions, the fairs, the courts, and the places of fashionable amusement; one of these curiosities of literature now before us, published less than a century ago, describes, as available resources to the stranger, Gouvernantes, Émeutes, Rêves Politiques, L'Art de Diner, Bureaux d'Esprit, —corresponding to our modern blue-stocking coteries, femmes de quarante ans, with their "deux ressources, la dévotion et le bel esprit"; Contre Poisons,—indispensable in those days of jealousy and assassination; Pots de Fleurs form an item of the most limited establishment; emblems, such as Rubans and Bonnets Rouges, are described as essential to the intelligent conduct of the visitor; and a chapter is devoted to Gallantry, of which a modern author in the same department pensively