There was another oyster-girl who solved a question of lexicographic definition which had hopelessly baffled the Academicians. A new edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie was being prepared, and it became necessary to establish the distinction of meaning between the two expressions de suite and tout de suite. The forty Academicians were all at variance about it, and were about to tear their hair, when one of them, Népomucène Lemercier, exclaimed: “Let us go and dine at Ramponneau’s. That’s better than disputing. We can discuss the matter during dessert.” “Agreed,” replied another member – Nodier. The Academicians forthwith set out, and when they had arrived at their destination one of them, Parseval-Grandmaison, who ordered the dinner, said to the écaillère: “Open forty dozen oysters for us de suite, and serve them tout de suite.” “But, sir,” replied the oyster-woman, “if I open them de suite, I cannot serve them tout de suite.” The Academicians looked at each other in astonishment. The problem had been solved. They had now discovered that of the two expressions tout de suite indicated the greater celerity.
CHAPTER II.
THE ENGLISH AND AMERICANS IN PARIS
HITHERTO the types of character which we have noticed have been native. Let us vary them by a glance at the typical foreigner or rather foreigners residing or sojourning in Paris.
To begin with the Englishman. In Paris, although there are a great number of Englishmen, it can hardly be said that an English Society exists. Samuel Johnson once complained that Englishmen did not fraternise with one another; that if two visitors called upon a lady about the same time and were shown into her drawing-room, they would, until the lady made her appearance – say for five minutes – simply glare at one other in silence, whereas a couple of foreigners would, although they had never met before, have entered into a conversation.
Without, perhaps, being aware of Johnson’s stricture on the social frigidity of his own countrymen, an excellent French writer, John Lemoinne, has noticed the same insular peculiarity in English visitors to Paris. “The English,” he says, “do not seek one another’s acquaintance; they do not come into other lands to find themselves. If they easily form acquaintanceship with foreigners, they are more fastidious in approaching each other. An Englishman will make friends with a Frenchman without the ceremony of presentation, I mean of introduction, but never with another Englishman. A couple of Englishmen stare at each other very hard before saying, ‘How do you do?’”
Punch many years ago noticed this national characteristic in a picture which represented two English visitors to Paris breakfasting at the same table in the Hôtel Meurice, and, although the only guests in the room, solemnly ignoring each other’s existence.
But M. Lemoinne goes further than Punch. “If the English leave their native land,” he says, “it is not to find their own compatriots; it is to see new men and new things. Even when you understand their language, they prefer to talk to you in their bad French. The thing is intelligible enough: they wish to learn, and have no desire to teach. You are regarded simply as a book and a grammar. The foreigner must be turned to some account.”
So far excellent. But let us return to Samuel Johnson. When he visited Paris did he air his “bad French”? No, he absolutely refused to speak a word of anything but English. This by no means confirms M. Lemoinne’s proposition. Yet in fairness, let it be said, Johnson’s chief objection to talking French in Paris was a fear lest he should “put his foot in it,” and, lexicographer as he was, excite by some grammatical blunder the ridicule of irreverent Parisians.
Let us see, however, to what lengths M. Lemoinne is prepared to go. “If there was ever a people who have the sentiment of nationality, it is,” he says, “the English. They are impregnated, petrified with it; the thing is fatiguing and offensive. But in order to affirm and manifest this sentiment the English have no need to group themselves, to form themselves into a society. An Englishman is to himself England alone; he carries his nation in him, with him, on him; he does not require to be several. Everywhere he is at home: the atmosphere is his kingdom and the ambient air his property. Religion enters largely into this temperament. The Englishman carries not only his nation, but his religion with him; he scours the whole earth with his Bible for companion; the Frenchman, habitually catholic, requires a bell and a priest – he does not know how to converse directly with Heaven. From a social point of view, moreover, the English find France freer, more liberal, more open than their own country. English society, at home, is regulated like music-paper; it has a severe hierarchy, in which the most idiotic little lord stands before a man of genius without a title. Geographically, it is a very narrow space which separates England from France; but this space is a gulf. The two countries are in constant relationship; but they never arrive at any resemblance to each other. We have not the political liberty of the English, and they have not our social equality. An Englishman could not live with laws like those which, in France, regulate the right of speaking, the right of writing, the right of petitioning, the right of assembling, the right of going and coming; but a Frenchman would be stifled amidst those thousand conventional bonds which form English society. The influence of convention in England is such that it equals and even surpasses the tyranny of the political and administrative laws of the Continent. That is why the Englishman, after a stay of some time, and when the ice of his nature is a little melted, moves amongst foreigners as freely as he moves at home. No possible comparison can be made between the Frenchman in London and the Englishman in Paris; or at all events the comparison can only be an antithesis. The Frenchman who pays a visit to England will, so soon as presented, be welcomed with a boundless hospitality, provided his visit is only a flying one; but if he apparently wishes to take root, the soil refuses, and society shuts itself up and retires as though a descent were being made upon its territory. It must be confessed, moreover, that France is not usually represented in England by the cream or flower of her population; and for a simple reason, namely, that a Frenchman does not go to England for pleasure or from choice, and that he has no idea but that of returning as quickly as possible. But apart, even, from these particular circumstances, the mere pressure of the English social atmosphere suffices to asphyxiate a Frenchman. It is a world, an order of ideas, an assemblage of laws and customs entirely different from all others.
“A Parisian may for years walk round English society as he would walk round the wall of China, without being able to find either a door or a window. He understands absolutely nothing about it.
“In France, on the contrary, Englishmen find a greater social liberty. French society is an open society; French manners are cosmopolitan manners. The most diverse peoples can in France find their place without losing their national character. In our country everyone is at home, and the Englishman gets on comfortably enough. In the Englishman, however, it is necessary to distinguish between the citizen and the individual; for he is both. When the national interests or passions are in question he does not scruple to intrigue and conspire; when he is unconcerned with the politics of the country where he happens to find himself, he practises the greatest reserve and mixes in nothing. See the English at Paris. They assist at all our revolutions as mere spectators; their sole care is to get a good seat. They always come to their ambassador to request a presentation at the Tuileries and tickets for the court ball.”
So far we have presented the observations of M. Lemoinne for what they may be worth. That his skilful pen, however, penetrates sometimes into the regions of truth is shown by the fact that his remarks not infrequently recall those of foreign writers so famous as to be regarded more or less as oracular. Heine, after visiting London, complained that at an English dinner party the gentlemen, after the ladies had retired from the dining-room, remained at table for an hour or two to saturate themselves with port. Heine, it must be remembered, took a perverse delight in satirising everything English. But that we, in England, do leave the ladies to drink their after-dinner coffee in the desolation of the drawing-room must be handsomely admitted. M. Lemoinne notices this peculiarity.
“The time has passed,” he says – with burlesque drollery – “when the true Englishman remained at table for several hours after dinner and ended