第44章 ON SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS(9)

"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 Mondrage: '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 Mondrage, '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.