CHAPTER XII.
Pia mater,
Plus quam se sapere, et virtutibus esse priorem
Vult, et ait prope vera.
--Horace.
Vere mihi festus atras
Eximet curas.
--Horace.
The next morning I received a letter from my mother.
"My dear Henry," began my affectionate and incomparable parent--
"My dear Henry,
"You have now fairly entered the world, and though at your age my advice
may be but little followed, my experience cannot altogether be useless. I
shall, therefore, make no apology for a few precepts, which I hope may
tend to make you a wiser and better man.
"I hope, in the first place, that you have left your letter at the
ambassador's, and that you will not fail to go there as often as
possible. Pay your court in particular to Lady--She is a charming person,
universally popular, and one of the very few English people to whom one
may safely be civil. Apropos, of English civility, you have, I hope, by
this time discovered, that you have to assume a very different manner
with French people than with our own countrymen: with us, the least
appearance of feeling or enthusiasm is certain to be ridiculed every
where; but in France, you may venture to seem not quite devoid of all
natural sentiments: indeed, if you affect enthusiasm, they will give you
credit for genius, and they will place all the qualities of the heart to
the account of the head. You know that in England, if you seem desirous
of a person's acquaintance you are sure to lose it; they imagine you have
some design upon their wives or their dinners; but in France you can
never lose by politeness: nobody will call your civility forwardness and
pushing. If the Princess De T--, and the Duchesse de D--, ask you to
their houses (which indeed they will, directly you have left your
letters), go there two or three times a week, if only for a few minutes
in the evening. It is very hard to be acquainted with great French
people, but when you are, it is your own fault if you are not intimate
with them.
"Most English people have a kind of diffidence and scruple at calling in
the evening--this is perfectly misplaced: the French are never ashamed of
themselves, like us, whose persons, families, and houses are never fit to
be seen, unless they are dressed out for a party.
"Don't imagine that the ease of French manners is at all like what we
call ease: you must not lounge on your chair--nor put your feet upon a
stool--nor forget yourself for one single moment when you are talking
with women.
"You have heard a great deal about the gallantries of the French ladies;
but remember that they demand infinitely greater attention than English
women do; and that after a month's incessant devotion, you may lose every
thing by a moment's impolitesse.
"You will not, my dear son, misinterpret these hints. I suppose, of
course, that all your liaisons are platonic.
"Your father is laid up with the gout, and dreadfully ill-tempered and
peevish; however, I keep out of the way as much as possible. I dined
yesterday at Lady Roseville's: she praised you very much, said your
manners were particularly good, and that you had already quite the usage
du monde. Lord Vincent is, I understand, at Paris: though very tiresome
with his learning and Latin, he is exceedingly clever and repandu; be
sure to cultivate his acquaintance.
"If you are ever at a loss as to the individual character of a person you
wish to gain, the general knowledge of human nature will teach you one
infallible specific,--flattery! The quantity and quality may vary
according to the exact niceties of art; but, in any quantity and in any
quality, it is more or less acceptable, and therefore certain to please.
Only never (or at least very rarely) flatter when other people, besides
the one to be flattered, are by; in that case you offend the rest, and
you make even your intended dupe ashamed to be pleased.
"In general, weak minds think only of others, and yet seem only occupied
with themselves; you, on the contrary, must appear wholly engrossed with
those about you, and yet never have a single idea which does not
terminate in yourself: a fool, my dear Henry, flatters himself--a wise
man flatters the fool.
"God bless you, my dear child, take care of your health--don't forget
Coulon; and believe me your most affectionate mother,
"F. P."
By the time I had read this letter and dressed myself for the evening,
Vincent's carriage was at the porte cocher. I hate the affection of
keeping people waiting, and went down so quickly, that I met his
facetious lordship upon the stairs. "Devilish windy," said I, as we were
getting into the carriage.
"Yes," said Vincent; "but the moral Horace reminds us of our remedies as
well as our misfortune--
"'Jam galeam Pallas, et aegida,
Currusque parat,'--
that is, 'Providence that prepares the gale, gives us also a great coat
and a carriage.'"
We were not long driving to the Palais Royal. Very's was crowded to
excess--"A very low set!" said Lord Vincent, (who, being half a liberal,
is of course a thorough aristocrat) looking round at the various English
who occupied the apartment.
There was, indeed, a motley congregation; country esquires; extracts from
the Universities; half-pay officers; city clerks in frogged coats and
mustachios; two or three of a better looking description, but in reality
half swindlers half gentlemen. All, in short, fit specimens of that
wandering tribe, which spread over the continent the renown and the
ridicule of good old England. I know not why it is that we should look
and act so very disgracefully abroad; but I never meet in any spot out of
this happy island, a single Englishman, without instinctively blushing
for my native country.
"Garcon, garcon," cried a stout gentleman, who made one of three at the
table next to us. "Donnez-nous une sole frite pour un, et des pommes de
terre pour trois!"
"Humph!" said Lord Vincent; "fine ideas of English taste these garcons
must entertain; men who prefer fried soles and potatoes to the various
delicacies they can command here, might, by the same perversion of taste,
prefer Bloomfield's poems to Byron's. Delicate taste depends solely upon
the physical construction; and a man who has it not in cookery, must want
it in literature. Fried sole and potatoes!! If I had written a volume,
whose merit was in elegance, I would not show it to such a man!--but he
might be an admirable critic upon 'Cobbett's Register,' or 'Every Man his
own Brewer.'"
"Excessively true," said I; "what shall we order?"
"D'abord des huitres d'Ostende," said Vincent; "as to the rest," taking
hold of the carte, "deliberare utilia mora utilissima est."
We were soon engaged in all the pleasures and pains of a dinner.
"Petimus," said Lord Vincent, helping himself to some poulet a
l'Austerlitz, "petimus bene vivere--quod petis, hic est?"
We were not, however, assured of that fact at the termination of dinner.
If half the dishes were well conceived and better executed, the other
half were proportionably bad. Very is, indeed, no longer the prince of
Restaurateurs. The low English who have flocked there, have entirely
ruined the place. What waiter--what cook can possibly respect men who
take no soup, and begin with a roti; who know neither what is good nor
what is bad; who eat rognons at dinner instead of at breakfast, and fall
into raptures over sauce Robert and pieds de cochon; who cannot tell, at
the first taste, whether the beaune is premiere qualite, or the fricassee
made of yesterday's chicken; who suffer in the stomach after champignon,
and die with indigestion of a truffle? O! English people, English people!
why can you not stay and perish of apoplexy and Yorkshire pudding at
home?
By the time we had drank our coffee it was considerably past nine
o'clock, and Vincent had business at the ambassador's before ten; we
therefore parted for the night.
"What do you think of Very's?" said I, as we were at the door.
"Why," replied Vincent, "when I recal the astonishing heat of the place,
which has almost sent me to sleep; the exceeding number of times in which
that becasse had been re-roasted, and the extortionate length of our
bills, I say of Very's, what Hamlet said of the world, 'Weary, stale, and
unprofitable!'"
