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The Paris Sketch Book

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> The Paris Sketch Book




Now, whether Monsieur de Viel-Castel has given a true picture of
the Faubourg St. Germain, it is impossible for most foreigners to
say; but some of his descriptions will not fail to astonish the
English reader; and all are filled with that remarkable naïf
contempt of the institution called marriage, which we have seen in
M. de Bernard. The romantic young nobleman of Westphalia arrives
at Paris, and is admitted into what a celebrated female author
calls la crême de la crême de la haute volée of Parisian society.
He is a youth of about twenty years of age. "No passion had as yet
come to move his heart, and give life to his faculties; he was
awaiting and fearing the moment of love; calling for it, and yet
trembling at its approach; feeling in the depths of his soul, that
that moment would create a mighty change in his being, and decide,
perhaps, by its influence, the whole of his future life."

Is it not remarkable, that a young nobleman, with these ideas,
should not pitch upon a demoiselle, or a widow, at least? but no,
the rogue must have a married woman, bad luck to him; and what his
fate is to be, is thus recounted by our author, in the shape of


A FRENCH FASHIONABLE CONVERSATION.


"A lady, with a great deal of esprit, to whom forty years'
experience of the great world had given a prodigious perspicacity
of judgment, the Duchess of Chalux, arbitress of the opinion to be
held on all new comers to the Faubourg Saint Germain, and of their
destiny and reception in it;--one of those women, in a word, who
make or ruin a man,--said, in speaking of Gerard de Stolberg, whom
she received at her own house, and met everywhere, 'This young
German will never gain for himself the title of an exquisite, or a
man of bonnes fortunes, among us. In spite of his calm and
politeness, I think I can see in his character some rude and
insurmountable difficulties, which time will only increase, and
which will prevent him for ever from bending to the exigencies of
either profession; but, unless I very much deceive myself, he will,
one day, be the hero of a veritable romance.'

"'He, madame?' answered a young man, of fair complexion and fair
hair, one of the most devoted slaves of the fashion:--'He, Madame
la Duchesse? why, the man is, at best, but an original, fished out
of the Rhine: a dull, heavy creature, as much capable of
understanding a woman's heart as I am of speaking bas-Breton.'

"'Well, Monsieur de Belport, you will speak bas-Breton. Monsieur
de Stolberg has not your admirable ease of manner, nor your
facility of telling pretty nothings, nor your--in a word, that
particular something which makes you the most recherché man of the
Faubourg Saint Germain; and even I avow to you that, were I still
young, and a coquette, AND THAT I TOOK IT INTO MY HEAD TO HAVE A
LOVER, I would prefer you.'

"All this was said by the Duchess, with a certain air of raillery
and such a mixture of earnest and malice, that Monsieur de Belport,
piqued not a little, could not help saying, as he bowed profoundly
before the Duchess's chair, 'And might I, madam, be permitted to
ask the reason of this preference?'

"'O mon Dieu, oui,' said the Duchess, always in the same tone;
'because a lover like you would never think of carrying his
attachment to the height of passion; and these passions, do you
know, have frightened me all my life. One cannot retreat at will
from the grasp of a passionate lover; one leaves behind one some
fragment of one's moral SELF, or the best part of one's physical
life. A passion, if it does not kill you, adds cruelly to your
years; in a word, it is the very lowest possible taste. And now
you understand why I should prefer you, M. de Belport--you who are
reputed to be the leader of the fashion.'

"'Perfectly,' murmured the gentleman, piqued more and more.

"'Gerard de Stolberg WILL be passionate. I don't know what woman
will please him, or will be pleased by him' (here the Duchess of
Chalux spoke more gravely); 'but his love will be no play, I repeat
it to you once more. All this astonishes you, because you, great
leaders of the ton that you are, never fancy that a hero of romance
should be found among your number. Gerard de Stolberg--but, look,
here he comes!'

"M. de Belport rose, and quitted the Duchess, without believing in
her prophecy; but he could not avoid smiling as he passed near the
HERO OF ROMANCE.

"It was because M. de Stolberg had never, in all his life, been a
hero of romance, or even an apprentice-hero of romance.


"Gerard de Stolberg was not, as yet, initiated into the thousand
secrets in the chronicle of the great world: he knew but
superficially the society in which he lived; and, therefore, he
devoted his evening to the gathering of all the information which
he could acquire from the indiscreet conversations of the people
about him. His whole man became ear and memory; so much was
Stolberg convinced of the necessity of becoming a diligent student
in this new school, where was taught the art of knowing and
advancing in the great world. In the recess of a window he learned
more on this one night than months of investigation would have
taught him. The talk of a ball is more indiscreet than the
confidential chatter of a company of idle women. No man present at
a ball, whether listener or speaker, thinks he has a right to
affect any indulgence for his companions, and the most learned in
malice will always pass for the most witty.

"'How!' said the Viscount de Mondragé: 'the Duchess of Rivesalte
arrives alone to-night, without her inevitable Dormilly!'--And the
Viscount, as he spoke, pointed towards a tall and slender young
woman, who, gliding rather than walking, met the ladies by whom she
passed, with a graceful and modest salute, and replied to the looks
of the men BY BRILLIANT VEILED GLANCES FULL OF COQUETRY AND ATTACK.

"'Parbleu!' said an elegant personage standing near the Viscount de
Mondragé, 'don't you see Dormilly ranged behind the Duchess, in
quality of train-bearer, and hiding, under his long locks and his
great screen of moustaches, the blushing consciousness of his good
luck?--They call him THE FOURTH CHAPTER of the Duchess's memoirs.
The little Marquise d'Alberas is ready to die out of spite; but the
best of the joke is, that she has only taken poor de Vendre for a
lover in order to vent her spleen on him. Look at him against the
chimney yonder; if the Marchioness do not break at once with him by
quitting him for somebody else, the poor fellow will turn an idiot.'

"'Is he jealous?' asked a young man, looking as if he did not know
what jealousy was and as if he had no time to be jealous.

"'Jealous! the very incarnation of jealousy; the second edition,
revised, corrected, and considerably enlarged; as jealous as poor
Gressigny, who is dying of it.'

"'What! Gressigny too? why, 'tis growing quite into fashion:
egad! I must try and be jealous,' said Monsieur de Beauval. 'But
see! here comes the delicious Duchess of Bellefiore,'" &c. &c. &c.


Enough, enough: this kind of fashionable Parisian conversation,
which is, says our author, "a prodigious labor of improvising," a
"chef-d'oeuvre," a "strange and singular thing, in which monotony
is unknown," seems to be, if correctly reported, a "strange and
singular thing" indeed; but somewhat monotonous at least to an
English reader, and "prodigious" only, if we may take leave to say
so, for the wonderful rascality which all the conversationists
betray. Miss Neverout and the Colonel, in Swift's famous dialogue,
are a thousand times more entertaining and moral; and, besides, we
can laugh AT those worthies as well as with them; whereas the
"prodigious" French wits are to us quite incomprehensible. Fancy a
duchess as old as Lady ---- herself, and who should begin to tell
us "of what she would do if ever she had a mind to take a lover;"
and another duchess, with a fourth lover, tripping modestly among
the ladies, and returning the gaze of the men by veiled glances,
full of coquetry and attack!--Parbleu, if Monsieur de Viel-Castel
should find himself among a society of French duchesses, and they
should tear his eyes out, and send the fashionable Orpheus floating
by the Seine, his slaughter might almost be considered as
justifiable COUNTICIDE.




A GAMBLER'S DEATH.


Anybody who was at C---- school some twelve years since, must
recollect Jack Attwood: he was the most dashing lad in the place,
with more money in his pocket than belonged to the whole fifth form
in which we were companions.

When he was about fifteen, Jack suddenly retreated from C----, and
presently we heard that he had a commission in a cavalry regiment,
and was to have a great fortune from his father, when that old
gentleman should die. Jack himself came to confirm these stories a
few months after, and paid a visit to his old school chums. He had
laid aside his little school-jacket and inky corduroys, and now
appeared in such a splendid military suit as won the respect of all
of us. His hair was dripping with oil, his hands were covered with
rings, he had a dusky down over his upper lip which looked not
unlike a moustache, and a multiplicity of frogs and braiding on his
surtout which would have sufficed to lace a field-marshal. When
old Swishtail, the usher, passed in his seedy black coat and
gaiters, Jack gave him such a look of contempt as set us all a-
laughing: in fact it was his turn to laugh now; for he used to roar
very stoutly some months before, when Swishtail was in the custom
of belaboring him with his great cane.

Jack's talk was all about the regiment and the fine fellows in it:
how he had ridden a steeple-chase with Captain Boldero, and licked
him at the last hedge; and how he had very nearly fought a duel
with Sir George Grig, about dancing with Lady Mary Slamken at a
ball. "I soon made the baronet know what it was to deal with a man
of the n--th," said Jack. "Dammee, sir, when I lugged out my
barkers, and talked of fighting across the mess-room table, Grig
turned as pale as a sheet, or as--"

"Or as you used to do, Attwood, when Swishtail hauled you up,"
piped out little Hicks, the foundation-boy.

It was beneath Jack's dignity to thrash anybody, now, but a grown-
up baronet; so he let off little Hicks, and passed over the general
titter which was raised at his expense. However, he entertained us
with his histories about lords and ladies, and so-and-so "of ours,"
until we thought him one of the greatest men in his Majesty's
service, and until the school-bell rung; when, with a heavy heart,
we got our books together, and marched in to be whacked by old
Swishtail. I promise you he revenged himself on us for Jack's
contempt of him. I got that day at least twenty cuts to my share,
which ought to have belonged to Cornet Attwood, of the n--th
dragoons.

When we came to think more coolly over our quondam schoolfellow's
swaggering talk and manner, we were not quite so impressed by his
merits as at his first appearance among us. We recollected how he
used, in former times, to tell us great stories, which were so
monstrously improbable that the smallest boy in the school would
scout them; how often we caught him tripping in facts, and how
unblushingly he admitted his little errors in the score of
veracity. He and I, though never great friends, had been close
companions: I was Jack's form-fellow (we fought with amazing
emulation for the LAST place in the class); but still I was rather
hurt at the coolness of my old comrade, who had forgotten all our
former intimacy, in his steeple-chases with Captain Boldero and his
duel with Sir George Grig.

Nothing more was heard of Attwood for some years; a tailor one day
came down to C----, who had made clothes for Jack in his school-
days, and furnished him with regimentals: he produced a long bill
for one hundred and twenty pounds and upwards, and asked where news
might be had of his customer. Jack was in India, with his
regiment, shooting tigers and jackals, no doubt. Occasionally,
from that distant country, some magnificent rumor would reach us of
his proceedings. Once I heard that he had been called to a court-
martial for unbecoming conduct; another time, that he kept twenty
horses, and won the gold plate at the Calcutta races. Presently,
however, as the recollections of the fifth form wore away, Jack's
image disappeared likewise, and I ceased to ask or think about my
college chum.

A year since, as I was smoking my cigar in the "Estaminet du Grand
Balcon," an excellent smoking-shop, where the tobacco is
unexceptionable, and the Hollands of singular merit, a dark-
looking, thick-set man, in a greasy well-cut coat, with a shabby
hat, cocked on one side of his dirty face, took the place opposite
me, at the little marble table, and called for brandy. I did not
much admire the impudence or the appearance of my friend, nor the
fixed stare with which he chose to examine me. At last, he thrust
a great greasy hand across the table, and said, "Titmarsh, do you
forget your old friend Attwood?"

I confess my recognition of him was not so joyful as on the day ten
years earlier, when he had come, bedizened with lace and gold
rings, to see us at C---- school: a man in the tenth part of a
century learns a deal of worldly wisdom, and his hand, which goes
naturally forward to seize the gloved finger of a millionnaire, or
a milor, draws instinctively back from a dirty fist, encompassed by
a ragged wristband and a tattered cuff. But Attwood was in nowise
so backward; and the iron squeeze with which he shook my passive
paw, proved that he was either very affectionate or very poor.
You, my dear sir, who are reading this history, know very well the
great art of shaking hands: recollect how you shook Lord Dash's
hand the other day, and how you shook OFF poor Blank, when he came
to borrow five pounds of you.

However, the genial influence of the Hollands speedily dissipated
anything like coolness between us and, in the course of an hour's
conversation, we became almost as intimate as when we were
suffering together under the ferule of old Swishtail. Jack told me
that he had quitted the army in disgust; and that his father, who
was to leave him a fortune, had died ten thousand pounds in debt:
he did not touch upon his own circumstances; but I could read them
in his elbows, which were peeping through his old frock. He talked
a great deal, however, of runs of luck, good and bad; and related
to me an infallible plan for breaking all the play-banks in Europe--
a great number of old tricks;--and a vast quantity of gin-punch
was consumed on the occasion; so long, in fact, did our conversation
continue, that, I confess it with shame, the sentiment, or something
stronger, quite got the better of me, and I have, to this day, no
sort of notion how our palaver concluded.--Only, on the next
morning, I did not possess a certain five-pound note which on the
previous evening was in my sketch-book (by far the prettiest drawing
by the way in the collection) but there, instead, was a strip of
paper, thus inscribed:--


IOU
Five Pounds. JOHN ATTWOOD,
Late of the N--th Dragoons.


I suppose Attwood borrowed the money, from this remarkable and
ceremonious acknowledgment on his part: had I been sober I would
just as soon have lent him the nose on my face; for, in my then
circumstances, the note was of much more consequence to me.

As I lay, cursing my ill fortune, and thinking how on earth I
should manage to subsist for the next two months, Attwood burst
into my little garret--his face strangely flushed--singing and
shouting as if it had been the night before. "Titmarsh," cried he,
"you are my preserver!--my best friend! Look here, and here, and
here!" And at every word Mr. Attwood produced a handful of gold,
or a glittering heap of five-franc pieces, or a bundle of greasy,
dusky bank-notes, more beautiful than either silver or gold:--he
had won thirteen thousand francs after leaving me at midnight in my
garret. He separated my poor little all, of six pieces, from this
shining and imposing collection; and the passion of envy entered my
soul: I felt far more anxious now than before, although starvation
was then staring me in the face; I hated Attwood for CHEATING me
out of all this wealth. Poor fellow! it had been better for him
had he never seen a shilling of it.

However, a grand breakfast at the Café Anglais dissipated my
chagrin; and I will do my friend the justice to say, that he nobly
shared some portion of his good fortune with me. As far as the
creature comforts were concerned I feasted as well as he, and never
was particular as to settling my share of the reckoning.

Jack now changed his lodgings; had cards, with Captain Attwood
engraved on them, and drove about a prancing cab-horse, as tall as
the giraffe at the Jardin des Plantes; he had as many frogs on his
coat as in the old days, and frequented all the flash restaurateurs'
and boarding-houses of the capital. Madame de Saint Laurent, and
Madame la Baronne de Vaudrey, and Madame la Comtesse de Jonville,
ladies of the highest rank, who keep a société choisie and
condescend to give dinners at five-francs a head, vied with each
other in their attentions to Jack. His was the wing of the fowl,
and the largest portion of the Charlotte-Russe; his was the place at
the écarté table, where the Countess would ease him nightly of a few
pieces, declaring that he was the most charming cavalier, la fleur
d'Albion. Jack's society, it may be seen, was not very select; nor,
in truth, were his inclinations: he was a careless, daredevil,
Macheath kind of fellow, who might be seen daily with a wife on each
arm.

It may be supposed that, with the life he led, his five hundred
pounds of winnings would not last him long; nor did they; but, for
some time, his luck never deserted him; and his cash, instead of
growing lower, seemed always to maintain a certain level: he played
every night.

Of course, such a humble fellow as I, could not hope for a
continued acquaintance and intimacy with Attwood. He grew
overbearing and cool, I thought; at any rate I did not admire my
situation as his follower and dependant, and left his grand dinner
for a certain ordinary, where I could partake of five capital
dishes for ninepence. Occasionally, however, Attwood favored me
with a visit, or gave me a drive behind his great cab-horse. He
had formed a whole host of friends besides. There was Fips, the
barrister; heaven knows what he was doing at Paris; and Gortz, the
West Indian, who was there on the same business, and Flapper, a
medical student,--all these three I met one night at Flapper's
rooms, where Jack was invited, and a great "spread" was laid in
honor of him.

Jack arrived rather late--he looked pale and agitated; and, though
he ate no supper, he drank raw brandy in such a manner as made
Flapper's eyes wink: the poor fellow had but three bottles, and
Jack bade fair to swallow them all. However, the West Indian
generously remedied the evil, and producing a napoleon, we speedily
got the change for it in the shape of four bottles of champagne.

Our supper was uproariously harmonious; Fips sung the good "Old
English Gentleman;" Jack the "British Grenadiers;" and your humble
servant, when called upon, sang that beautiful ditty, "When the
Bloom is on the Rye," in a manner that drew tears from every eye,
except Flapper's, who was asleep, and Jack's, who was singing the
"Bay of Biscay O," at the same time. Gortz and Fips were all the
time lunging at each other with a pair of single-sticks, the
barrister having a very strong notion that he was Richard the
Third. At last Fips hit the West Indian such a blow across his
sconce, that the other grew furious; he seized a champagne-bottle,
which was, providentially, empty, and hurled it across the room at
Fips: had that celebrated barrister not bowed his head at the
moment, the Queen's Bench would have lost one of its most eloquent
practitioners.

Fips stood as straight as he could; his cheek was pale with wrath.
"M-m-ister Go-gortz," he said, "I always heard you were a
blackguard; now I can pr-pr-peperove it. Flapper, your pistols!
every ge-ge-genlmn knows what I mean."

Young Mr. Flapper had a small pair of pocket-pistols, which the
tipsy barrister had suddenly remembered, and with which he proposed
to sacrifice the West Indian. Gortz was nothing loth, but was
quite as valorous as the lawyer.

Attwood, who, in spite of his potations, seemed the soberest man of
the party, had much enjoyed the scene, until this sudden demand for
the weapons. "Pshaw!" said he, eagerly, "don't give these men the
means of murdering each other; sit down and let us have another
song." But they would not be still; and Flapper forthwith produced
his pistol-case, and opened it, in order that the duel might take
place on the spot. There were no pistols there! "I beg your
pardon," said Attwood, looking much confused; "I--I took the
pistols home with me to clean them!"

I don't know what there was in his tone, or in the words, but we
were sobered all of a sudden. Attwood was conscious of the
singular effect produced by him, for he blushed, and endeavored to
speak of other things, but we could not bring our spirits back to
the mark again, and soon separated for the night. As we issued
into the street Jack took me aside, and whispered, "Have you a
napoleon, Titmarsh, in your purse?' Alas! I was not so rich. My
reply was, that I was coming to Jack, only in the morning, to
borrow a similar sum.

He did not make any reply, but turned away homeward: I never heard
him speak another word.


Two mornings after (for none of our party met on the day succeeding
the supper), I was awakened by my porter, who brought a pressing
letter from Mr. Gortz:--


"DEAR T.,--I wish you would come over here to breakfast. There's a
row about Attwood.--Yours truly,

"SOLOMON GORTZ."


I immediately set forward to Gortz's; he lived in the Rue du
Helder, a few doors from Attwood's new lodging. If the reader is
curious to know the house in which the catastrophe of this history
took place, he has but to march some twenty doors down from the
Boulevard des Italiens, when he will see a fine door, with a naked
Cupid shooting at him from the hall, and a Venus beckoning him up
the stairs. On arriving at the West Indian's, at about mid-day (it
was a Sunday morning), I found that gentleman in his dressing-gown,
discussing, in the company of Mr Fips, a large plate of bifteck aux
pommes.

"Here's a pretty row!" said Gortz, quoting from his letter;--
"Attwood's off--have a bit of beefsteak?"

"What do you mean?" exclaimed I, adopting the familiar phraseology
of my acquaintances:--"Attwood off?--has he cut his stick?"

"Not bad," said the feeling and elegant Fips--"not such a bad
guess, my boy; but he has not exactly CUT HIS STICK."

"What then?"

"WHY, HIS THROAT." The man's mouth was full of bleeding beef as he
uttered this gentlemanly witticism.

I wish I could say that I was myself in the least affected by the
news. I did not joke about it like my friend Fips; this was more
for propriety's sake than for feeling's: but for my old school
acquaintance, the friend of my early days, the merry associate of
the last few months, I own, with shame, that I had not a tear or a
pang. In some German tale there is an account of a creature most
beautiful and bewitching, whom all men admire and follow; but this
charming and fantastic spirit only leads them, one by one, into
ruin, and then leaves them. The novelist, who describes her
beauty, says that his heroine is a fairy, and HAS NO HEART. I
think the intimacy which is begotten over the wine-bottle, is a
spirit of this nature; I never knew a good feeling come from it, or
an honest friendship made by it; it only entices men and ruins
them; it is only a phantom of friendship and feeling, called up by
the delirious blood, and the wicked spells of the wine.

But to drop this strain of moralizing (in which the writer is not
too anxious to proceed, for he cuts in it a most pitiful figure),
we passed sundry criticisms upon poor Attwood's character,
expressed our horror at his death--which sentiment was fully proved
by Mr. Fips, who declared that the notion of it made him feel quite
faint, and was obliged to drink a large glass of brandy; and,
finally, we agreed that we would go and see the poor fellow's
corpse, and witness, if necessary, his burial.

Flapper, who had joined us, was the first to propose this visit: he
said he did not mind the fifteen francs which Jack owed him for
billiards, but he was anxious to GET BACK HIS PISTOL. Accordingly,
we sallied forth, and speedily arrived at the hotel which Attwood
inhabited still. He had occupied, for a time, very fine apartments
in this house: and it was only on arriving there that day that we
found he had been gradually driven from his magnificent suite of
rooms au premier, to a little chamber in the fifth story:--we
mounted, and found him. It was a little shabby room, with a few
articles of rickety furniture, and a bed in an alcove; the light
from the one window was falling full upon the bed and the body.
Jack was dressed in a fine lawn shirt; he had kept it, poor fellow,
TO DIE IN; for in all his drawers and cupboards there was not a
single article of clothing; he had pawned everything by which he
could raise a penny--desk, books, dressing-case, and clothes; and
not a single halfpenny was found in his possession.*

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