Gaudissart II | Page 5

hundred years hence, and set about writing
quartos with plates (like M. Quatremere's work on Olympian Jove) to
prove that Napoleon was something of a Sofi in the East before he
became "Emperor of the French." Well, the wealthy shop laid siege to
the poor little entresol; and after a bombardment with banknotes,
entered and took possession. The Human Comedy gave way before the
comedy of cashmeres. The Persian sacrificed a diamond or two from
his crown to buy that so necessary daylight; for a ray of sunlight shows
the play of the colors, brings out the charms of a shawl, and doubles its
value; 'tis an irresistible light; literally, a golden ray. From this fact you
may judge how far Paris shops are arranged with a view to effect.
But to return to the young assistants, to the beribboned man of forty
whom the King of the French receives at his table, to the red-bearded
head of the department with his autocrat's air. Week by week these
meritus Gaudissarts are brought in contact with whims past counting;
they know every vibration of the cashmere chord in the heart of woman.
No one, be she lady or lorette, a young mother of a family, a
respectable tradesman's wife, a woman of easy virtue, a duchess or a
brazen-fronted ballet-dancer, an innocent young girl or a too innocent
foreigner, can appear in the shop, but she is watched from the moment
when she first lays her fingers upon the door-handle. Her measure is
taken at a glance by seven or eight men that stand, in the windows, at
the counter, by the door, in a corner, in the middle of the shop,
meditating, to all appearance, on the joys of a bacchanalian Sunday
holiday. As you look at them, you ask yourself involuntarily, "What

can they be thinking about?" Well, in the space of one second, a
woman's purse, wishes, intentions, and whims are ransacked more
thoroughly than a traveling carriage at a frontier in an hour and
three-quarters. Nothing is lost on these intelligent rogues. As they stand,
solemn as noble fathers on the stage, they take in all the details of a fair
customer's dress; an invisible speck of mud on a little shoe, an
antiquated hat-brim, soiled or ill-judged bonnet- strings, the fashion of
the dress, the age of a pair of gloves. They can tell whether the gown
was cut by the intelligent scissors of a Victorine IV.; they know a
modish gewgaw or a trinket from Froment- Meurice. Nothing, in short,
which can reveal a woman's quality, fortune, or character passes
unremarked.
Tremble before them. Never was the Sanhedrim of Gaudissarts, with
their chief at their head, known to make a mistake. And, moreover, they
communicate their conclusions to one another with telegraphic speed,
in a glance, a smile, the movement of a muscle, a twitch of the lip. If
you watch them, you are reminded of the sudden outbreak of light
along the Champs-Elysees at dusk; one gas-jet does not succeed
another more swiftly than an idea flashes from one shopman's eyes to
the next.
At once, if the lady is English, the dark, mysterious, portentous
Gaudissart advances like a romantic character out of one of Byron's
poems.
If she is a city madam, the oldest is put forward. He brings out a
hundred shawls in fifteen minutes; he turns her head with colors and
patterns; every shawl that he shows her is like a circle described by a
kite wheeling round a hapless rabbit, till at the end of half an hour,
when her head is swimming and she is utterly incapable of making a
decision for herself, the good lady, meeting with a flattering response
to all her ideas, refers the question to the assistant, who promptly leaves
her on the horns of a dilemma between two equally irresistible shawls.
"This, madame, is very becoming--apple-green, the color of the season;
still, fashions change; while as for this other black-and-white shawl (an
opportunity not to be missed), you will never see the end of it, and it
will go with any dress."
This is the A B C of the trade.
"You would not believe how much eloquence is wanted in that beastly

line," the head Gaudissart of this particular establishment remarked
quite lately to two acquaintances (Duronceret and Bixiou) who had
come trusting in his judgment to buy a shawl. "Look here; you are
artists and discreet, I can tell you about the governor's tricks, and of all
the men I ever saw, he is the cleverest. I do not mean as a manufacturer,
there M. Fritot is first; but as a salesman. He discovered the 'Selim
shawl,' AN ABSOLUTELY UNSALABLE article, yet we never bring
it out but we sell it. We keep always