Balzac | Page 5

Frederick Lawton
the sister art.
On the contrary, in the practical aspects of life there was large activity,
though Paris almost alone profited by it. Napoleon's reconstruction in
the provinces was administrative chiefly. A complete programme was
first started on in the capital, which the Emperor wished to exalt into
the premier city of Europe. Gas-lighting, sewerage, paving and road
improvements, quays, and bridges were his gifts to the city, whose
general appearance, however, remained much the same. The
Palais-Royal served still as a principal rendezvous. The busy streets
were the Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Honore on the right bank, the Rue
Saint-Jacques on the left; and the most important shops were to be
found in the Rue de la Loi, at present the Rue de Richelieu.
The fall of the Empire was less a restoration of the Monarchy than the
definite disaggregation of the ancient aristocracy, which had been
centralized round the court since the days of Richelieu. The Court of
Louis XVIII. was no more like that of Louis XVI. than it was like the
noisy one of Napoleon. Receiving only a few personal friends, the King
allowed his drawing-rooms to remain deserted by the nobles that had
returned from exile; and the two or three who were regular visitors
were compelled to rub elbows with certain parvenus, magistrates,
financiers, generals of the Empire whom it would not have been
prudent to eliminate.
In this initial stage of society-decentralization, the diminished band of
the Boulevard Saint-Germain--descendants of the eighteenth-century
dukes and marquises--tried to close up their ranks and to differentiate
themselves from the plutocracy of the Chaussee d'Antin, who copied
their manners, with an added magnificence of display which those they
imitated could not afford. In the one camp the antique bronzes, gildings,
and carvings of a bygone art were retained with pious veneration; in the

other, pictures, carpets, Jacob chairs and sofas, mirrors, and time-pieces,
and the gold and silver plate were all in lavish style, indicative of their
owner's ampler means. One feature of the pre-Revolution era was
revived in the feminine /salons/, which regained most, if not the whole,
of their pristine renown. The Hotel de la Rochefoucauld of Madame
Ancelot became a second Hotel de Rambouillet, where the classical
Parseval-Grandmaison, who spent twenty years over his poem
/Philippe-Auguste/, held armistice with the young champion of the
Romantic school, Victor Hugo. The Princess de Vaudemont received
her guests in Paris during the winter, and at Suresnes during the
summer; and her friend the Duchess de Duras' /causeries/ were
frequented by such men as Cuvier, Humboldt, Talleyrand, Mole, de
Villele, Chateaubriand, and Villemain. Other circles existed in the
houses of the Dukes Pasquier and de Broglie, the countess Merlin, and
Madame de Mirbel.
With the re-establishment of peace, literary and toilet pre- occupations
began to assert their claims. The /Ourika/ of the Duchess de Duras took
Paris by storm. Her heroine, the young Senegal negress, gave her name
to dresses, hats, and bonnets. Everything was /Ourika/. The prettiest
Parisian woman yearned to be black, and regretted not having been
born in darkest Africa. Anglomania in men's clothes prevailed
throughout the reign of Louis XVIII., yet mixed with other modes.
"Behold an up-to-date dandy," says a writer of the epoch; "all extremes
meet in him. You shall see him Prussian by the stomach, Russian by his
waist, English in his coat-tails and collar, Cossack by the sack that
serves him as trousers, and by his fur. Add to these things Bolivar hats
and spurs, and the moustaches of a counter- skipper, and you have the
most singular harlequin to be met with on the face of the globe."
Among the masses there were changes just as striking. For the moment
militarism had disappeared, to the people's unfeigned content, and the
Garde Nationale, composed of pot-bellied tradesmen, alone recalled the
bright uniforms of the Empire. To make up for the soldier excitements
of the /Petit Caporal/, attractions of all kinds tempted the citizen to
enjoy himself after his day's toil was finished--menagerie, mountebanks,
Franconi circus, Robertson the conjurer in the Jardin des Capucines. At

the other end of the city, in the Boulevard du Temple, were Belle
Madeleine, the seller of Nanterre cakes, famous throughout Europe, the
face contortionist Valsuani, Miette in his egg-dance, Curtius' waxworks.
By each street corner were charlatans of one or another sort exchanging
jests with the passers-by. It was the period when the Prudhomme type
was created, so common in all the skits and caricatures of the day. One
of the greatest pleasures of the citizen under the Restoration was to
mock at the English. Revenge for Waterloo was found in written and
spoken satires. Huge was the success of Sewrin's and Dumersan's
/Anglaises pour rire/, with Brunet and Potier travestied as /grandes
dames/, dancing a jig so
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