第41章 ON SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS(6)

"'I surprise you,' said I, 'in the midst of your splendor: do you know that this costume and yonder attendants have a look excessively awful and splendid? You entered your palace just now with the air of a pasha.'

"'You see me in uniform in honor of Monseigneur the Bishop, who has just made his diocesan visit, and whom I have just conducted to the limit of the arrondissement.'

"'What!' said I, 'you have gendarmes for guards, and dance attendance on bishops? There are no more janissaries and Jesuits, I suppose?' The sub-prefect smiled.

"'I assure you that my gendarmes are very worthy fellows; and that among the gentlemen who compose our clergy there are some of the very best rank and talent: besides, my wife is niece to one of the vicars-general.'

"'What have you done with that great Tasso beard that poor Armandine used to love so?'

"'My wife does not like a beard; and you know that what is permitted to a student is not very becoming to a magistrate.'

"I began to laugh.'Harmodius and a magistrate!--how shall I ever couple the two words together? But tell me, in your correspondences, your audiences, your sittings with village mayors and petty councils, how do you manage to remain awake?'

"'In the commencement,' said Harmodius, gravely, 'it WAS very difficult; and, in order to keep my eyes open, I used to stick pins into my legs: now, however, I am used to it; and I'm sure I don't take more than fifty pinches of snuff at a sitting.'

"'Ah! apropos of snuff: you are near Spain here, and were always a famous smoker.Give me a cigar,--it will take away the musty odor of these piles of papers.'

"'Impossible, my dear; I don't smoke; my wife cannot bear a cigar.'

"His wife! thought I; always his wife: and I remember Juliette, who really grew sick at the smell of a pipe, and Harmodius would smoke, until, at last, the poor thing grew to smoke herself, like a trooper.To compensate, however, as much as possible for the loss of my cigar, Dambergeac drew from his pocket an enormous gold snuff-box, on which figured the self-same head that I had before remarked in plaster, but this time surrounded with a ring of pretty princes and princesses, all nicely painted in miniature.As for the statue of Louis Philippe, that, in the cabinet of an official, is a thing of course; but the snuff-box seemed to indicate a degree of sentimental and personal devotion, such as the old Royalists were only supposed to be guilty of.

"'What! you are turned decided juste milieu?' said I.

"'I am a sous-prefet,' answered Harmodius.

"I had nothing to say, but held my tongue, wondering, not at the change which had taken place in the habits, manners, and opinions of my friend, but at my own folly, which led me to fancy that Ishould find the student of '26 in the functionary of '34.At this moment a domestic appeared.

"'Madame is waiting for Monsieur,' said he: 'the last bell has gone, and mass beginning.'

"'Mass!' said I, bounding up from my chair.'You at mass like a decent serious Christian, without crackers in your pocket, and bored keys to whistle through?'--The sous-prefet rose, his countenance was calm, and an indulgent smile played upon his lips, as he said, 'My arrondissement is very devout; and not to interfere with the belief of the population is the maxim of every wise politician: I have precise orders from Government on the point, too, and go to eleven o'clock mass every Sunday."'

There is a great deal of curious matter for speculation in the accounts here so wittily given by M.de Bernard: but, perhaps, it is still more curious to think of what he has NOT written, and to judge of his characters, not so much by the words in which he describes them, as by the unconscious testimony that the words all together convey.In the first place, our author describes a swindler imitating the manners of a dandy; and many swindlers and dandies be there, doubtless, in London as well as in Paris.But there is about the present swindler, and about Monsieur Dambergeac the student, and Monsieur Dambergeac the sous-prefet, and his friend, a rich store of calm internal debauch, which does not, let us hope and pray, exist in England.Hearken to M.de Gustan, and his smirking whispers, about the Duchess of San Severino, who pour son bonheur particulier, &c.&c.Listen to Monsieur Dambergeac's friend's remonstrances concerning pauvre Juliette who grew sick at the smell of a pipe; to his naive admiration at the fact that the sous-prefet goes to church: and we may set down, as axioms, that religion is so uncommon among the Parisians, as to awaken the surprise of all candid observers; that gallantry is so common as to create no remark, and to be considered as a matter of course.With us, at least, the converse of the proposition prevails: it is the man professing irreligion who would be remarked and reprehended in England; and, if the second-named vice exists, at any rate, it adopts the decency of secrecy and is not made patent and notorious to all the world.A French gentleman thinks no more of proclaiming that he has a mistress than that he has a tailor; and one lives the time of Boccaccio over again, in the thousand and one French novels which depict society in that country.

For instance, here are before us a few specimens (do not, madam, be alarmed, you can skip the sentence if you like,) to be found in as many admirable witty tales, by the before-lauded Monsieur de Bernard.He is more remarkable than any other French author, to our notion, for writing like a gentleman: there is ease, grace and ton, in his style, which, if we judge aright, cannot be discovered in Balzac, or Soulie, or Dumas.We have then--"Gerfaut," a novel: