University of Virginia Library

THE ENGLISHMAN AT PARIS.

In another part of the hotel, a handsome suite of rooms is occupied
by an old English gentleman, of great probity, some understanding,
and very considerable crustiness, who has come to
France to live economically. He has a very fair property, but
his wife, being of that blessed kind compared in Scripture to the
fruitful vine, has overwhelmed him with a family of buxom
daughters, who hang clustering about him, ready to be gathered
by any hand. He is seldom to be seen in public, without one
hanging on each arm, and smiling on all the world, while his own
mouth is drawn down at each corner like a mastiff's, with internal
growling at every thing about him. He adheres rigidly to English
fashion in dress, and trudges about in long gaiters and broad-brimmed
hat; while his daughters almost overshadow him with
feathers, flowers, and French bonnets.

He contrives to keep up an atmosphere of English habits,
opinions, and prejudices, and to carry a semblance of London into
the very heart of Paris. His mornings are spent at Galignani's
newsroom, where he forms one of a knot of inveterate quid-nuncs,
who read the same articles over a dozen times in a dozen different
papers. He generally dines in company with some of his own countrymen,
and they have what is called a “comfortable sitting,” after
dinner, in the English fashion, drinking wine, discussing the news
of the London papers, and canvassing the French character, the
French metropolis, and the French revolution, ending with a unanimous
admission of English courage, English morality, English

cookery, English wealth, the magnitude of London, and the
ingratitude of the French.

His evenings are chiefly spent at a club of his countrymen,
where the London papers are taken. Sometimes his daughters
entice him to the theatres, but not often. He abuses French
tragedy, as all fustian and bombast, Talma as a ranter, and Duchesnois
as a mere termagant. It is true his ear is not sufficiently
familiar with the language to understand French verse, and he
generally goes to sleep during the performance. The wit of the
French comedy is flat and pointless to him. He would not give
one of Munden's wry faces, or Liston's inexpressible looks, for
the whole of it.

He will not admit that Paris has any advantage over London.
The Seine is a muddy rivulet in comparison with the Thames;
the West End of London surpasses the finest parts of the French
capital; and on some one's observing that there was a very thick
fog out of doors: “Pish!” said he, crustily, “it's nothing to the
fogs we have in London!”

He has infinite trouble in bringing his table into any thing
like conformity to English rule. With his liquors, it is true, he
is tolerably successful. He procures London porter, and a stock
of port and sherry, at considerable expense; for he observes that
he cannot stand those cursed thin French wines: they dilute his
blood so much as to give him the rheumatism. As to their white
wines, he stigmatizes them as mere substitutes for cider; and as
to claret, why “it would be port if it could.” He has continual
quarrels with his French cook, whom he renders wretched by insisting
on his conforming to Mrs. Glass; for it is easier to convert
a Frenchman from his religion than his cookery. The poor

fellow, by dint of repeated efforts, once brought himself to
serve up ros bif sufficiently raw to suit what he considered the
cannibal taste of his master; but then he could not refrain, at the
last moment, adding some exquisite sauce, that put the old
gentleman in a fury.

He detests wood-fires, and has procured a quantity of coal;
but not having a grate, he is obliged to burn it on the hearth.
Here he sits poking and stirring the fire with one end of a tongs,
while the room is as murky as a smithy; railing at French chimneys,
French masons, and French architects; giving a poke, at
the end of every sentence, as though he were stirring up the very
bowels of the delinquents he is anathematizing. He lives in a
state militant with inanimate objects around him; gets into high
dudgeon with doors and casements, because they will not come
under English law, and has implacable feuds with sundry refractory
pieces of furniture. Among these is one in particular with
which he is sure to have a high quarrel every time he goes to
dress. It is a commode, one of those smooth, polished, plausible
pieces of French furniture, that have the perversity of five hundred
devils. Each drawer has a will of its own; will open or not,
just as the whim takes it, and sets lock and key at defiance.
Sometimes a drawer will refuse to yield to either persuasion or
force, and will part with both handles rather than yield; another
will come out in the most coy and coquettish manner imaginable;
elbowing along, zigzag; one corner retreating as the other advances,
making a thousand difficulties and objections at every
move; until the old gentleman, out of all patience, gives a sudden
jerk, and brings drawer and contents into the middle of the floor.
His hostility to this unlucky piece of furniture increases every

day, as if incensed that it does not grow better. He is like the
fretful invalid, who cursed his bed, that the longer he lay, the
harder it grew. The only benefit he has derived from the quarrel
is, that it has furnished him with a crusty joke, which he utters
on all occasions. He swears that a French commode is the most
incommodious thing in existence, and that although the nation
cannot make a joint-stool that will stand steady, yet they are
always talking of every thing's being perfectionée.

His servants understand his humor, and avail themselves of
it. He was one day disturbed by a pertinacious rattling and
shaking at one of the doors, and bawled out in an angry tone to
know the cause of the disturbance. “Sir,” said the footman,
testily, “it's this confounded French lock!” “Ah!” said the old
gentleman, pacified by this hit at the nation, “I thought there
was something French at the bottom of it!”