Talks Over Travel. — London
There is an inborn and inbred distrust of “foreigners” in England—continental foreigners, I should say—which keeps the current of French and Italian society as distinct amid the sea of London, as the blue Rhone in Lake Leman. The word “foreigner,” in England, conveys exclusively the idea of a dark-complexioned and whiskered individual, in a frogged coat and distressed circumstances; and to introduce a smooth-cheeked, plainly-dressed, quiet-looking person by that name, would strike any circle of ladies and gentlemen as a palpable misnomer. The violent and unhappy contrast between the Parisian’s mode of life in London and in Paris, makes it very certain that few of those bien n’es et convenablement riches will live in London for pleasure; and then the flood of political émigrés, for the last half-century, has monopolised hair-dressing, &c., &c., to such a degree, that the word Frenchman is synonymous in English ears with barber and dancing-master. If a dark gentleman, wearing either whisker or mustache, chance to offend John Bull in the street, the first opprobrious language he hears—the strongest that occurs to the fellow’s mind—is “Get out, you —— Frenchman!”
All this, malgré the rage for foreign lions in London society. A well-introduced foreigner gets easily into this, and while he keeps his cabriolet and confines himself to frequenting soirées and accepting invitations to dine, he will never suspect that he is not on an equal footing with any “milor” in London. If he wishes to be disenchanted, he has only to change his lodgings from Long’s to Great Russell street, or (bitterer and readier trial) to propose marriage to the honorable Augusta or Lady Fanny.
Everybody who knows the society of Paris knows something of a handsome and very elegant young baron of the Faubourg St. Germain, who, with small fortune, very great taste, and greater credit, contrived to go on very swimmingly as an adorable roue and vaurien till he was hard upon twenty-five. At the first crisis in his affairs, the ladies, who hold all the politics in their laps, got him appointed consul to Algiers, or minister to Venezuela, and with this pretty pretext for selling his horses and dressing-gowns, these cherished articles brought twice their original value and saved his loyauté, and set him up in fans and monkeys at his place of exile. A year of this was enough for the darling of Paris, and not more than a day before his desolate loves would have ceased to mourn for him, he galloped into his hotel with a new fashion of whiskers, a black female slave, and the most delicious histories of his adventures during the ages he had been exiled. Down to the earth and their previous obscurity dropped the rivals who were just beginning to usurp his glories. A new stud, an indescribable vehicle, a suite of rooms à l’Africaine, and a mystery, preserved at some expense, about his negress, kept all Paris, including his new creditors, in admiring astonishment for a year. Among the crowd of his worshippers, not the last or least fervent, were the fair-haired and glowing beauties who assemble at the levees of their ambassador in the Rue St. Honore, and upon whom le beau Adolphe had looked as pretty savages, whose frightful toilets and horrid French accent might be tolerated one evening in the week—vu le souper!
Eclipses will arrive as calculated by insignificant astronomers, however, and debts will become due as presumed by vulgar tradesmen. Le beau Adolphe began to see another crisis, and betook himself to his old advisers, who were désolés to the last degree; but there was a new government, and the blood of the Faubourg was at a discount. No embassies were to be had for nothing. With a deep sigh, and a gentle tone, to spare his feelings as much as possible, his friend ventures to suggest to him that it will be necessary to sacrifice himself.
“Ahi! mais comment!”
“Marry one of these bêtes Anglaises, who drink you up with their great blue eyes, and are made of gold!”
Adolph buried his face in his gold-fringed oriental pocket-handkerchief; but when the first agony was passed, his resolution was taken, and he determined to go to England. The first beautiful creature he should see, whose funds were enormous and well-invested, should bear away from all the love, rank, and poverty of France, the perfumed hand he looked upon.
A flourishing letter, written in a small, cramped hand, but with a seal on whose breadth of wax and blazon all the united heraldry of France was interwoven, arrived, through the ambassador’s despatch box, to the address of Miladi ——, Belgrave square, announcing, in full, that le beau Adolphe was coming to London to marry the richest heiress in good society—and as Paris could not spare him more than a week, he wished those who had daughters to marry, answering the description, to be bien prévenus of his visit and errand. With the letter came a compend of his genealogy, from the man who spoke French in the confusion of Babel to le dit Baron Adolphe.
To London came the valet of le beau baron, two days before his master, bringing his slippers and dressing gown to be aired after their sea voyage across the channel. To London followed the irresistible youth, cursing, in the politest French, the necessity which subtracted a week from a life measured with such “diamond sparks” as his own in Paris. He sat himself down in his hotel, sent his man Porphyre with his card to every noble and rich house, whose barbarian tenants he had ever seen in the Champs Elysees, and waited the result. Invitations from fair ladies, who remembered him as the man the French belles were mad about, and from literary ladies, who wanted his whiskers and black eyes to give their soirées the necessary foreign complexion, flowed in on all sides, and Monsieur Adolphe selected his most mignon cane and his happiest design in a stocking, and “rendered himself” through the rain like a martyr.
No offers of marriage the first evening!
None the second!!
None the third!!!
Le beau Adolphe began to think either that English papas did not propose their daughters to people as in France; or, perhaps, that the lady whom he had commissioned to circulate his wishes had not sufficiently advertised him. She had, however.
He took advice, and found it would be necessary to take the first step himself. This was disagreeable, and he said to himself, “Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle”; but his youth was passing, and his English fortune was at interest.
He went to Almack’s, and proposed to the first authenticated fortune that accepted his hand for a waltz. The young lady first laughed, and then told her mother, who told her son, who thought it an insult, and called out le beau Adolphe, very much to the astonishment of himself and Porphyre. The thing was explained, and the baron looked about the next day for one pas si bête. Found a young lady with half a million sterling, proposed in a morning call, and was obliged to ring for assistance, his intended having gone into convulsions with laughing at him. The story by this time had got pretty well distributed through the different strata of London society;—and when le beau Adolphe, convinced that he would not succeed with the noble heiresses of Belgrave square, condescended, in his extremity, to send his heart by his valet to a rich little vulgarian, who “never had a grandfather,” and lived in Harley street, he narrowly escaped being prosecuted for a nuisance, and, Paris being now in possession of the enemy, he buried his sorrows in Belgium. After a short exile his friends procured him a vice-consulate in some port in the North Sea, and there probably at this moment he sorrowfully vegetates.
This is not a story founded upon fact, but literally true.—Many of the circumstances came under my own observation; and the whole thus affords a laughable example of the esteem in which what an English fox-hunter would call a “trashy Frenchman” is held in England, as well as of the travestie produced by transplanting the usages of one country to another.
Ridiculous as any intimate mixture of English and French ideas and persons seems to be in London, the foreign society of itself in that capital is exceedingly spiritual and agreeable. The various European embassies and their attachés, with their distinguished travellers, from their several countries, accidentally belonging to each; the French and Italians, married to English noblemen and gentry, and living in London, and the English themselves, who have become cosmopolite by residence in other countries, form a very large society in which mix, on perfectly equal terms, the first singers of the opera, and foreign musicians and artists generally. This last circumstance gives a peculiar charm to these reunions, though it imparts a pride and haughty bearing to the prima donna and her fraternity, which is, at least, sometimes very inconvenient to themselves. The remark recalls to my mind a scene I once witnessed in London, which will illustrate the feeling better than an essay upon it.
I was at one of those private concerts given at an enormous expense during the opera season, at which “assisted” Julia Grisi, Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, and Ivanhoff. Grisi came in the carriage of a foreign lady of rank, who had dined with her, and she walked into the room looking like an empress. She was dressed in the plainest white, with her glossy haircut smooth from her brow, and a single white japonica dropped over one of her temples. The lady who brought her chaperoned her during the evening, as if she had been her daughter, and under the excitement of her own table and the kindness of her friends, she sung with a rapture and a freshet of glory (if one may borrow a word from the Mississippi) which set all hearts on fire. She surpassed her most applauded hour on the stage—for it was worth her while. The audience was composed, almost exclusively, of those who are not only cultivated judges, but who sometimes repay delight with a present of diamonds.
Lablache shook the house to its foundations in his turn; Rubini ran through his miraculous compass with the ease, truth, and melody, for which his singing is unsurpassed; Tamburini poured his rich and even fullness on the ear, and Russian Ivanhoff, the one southern singing-bird who has come out of the north, wire-drew his fine and spiritual notes, till they who had been flushed, and tearful, and silent, when the others had sang, drowned his voice in the poorer applause of exclamation and surprise.
The concert was over by twelve, the gold and silver paper bills of the performance were turned into fans, and every one was waiting till supper should be announced—the prima donna still sitting by her friend, but surrounded by foreign attachés, and in the highest elation at her own success. The doors of an inner suite of rooms were thrown open at last, and Grisi’s cordon of admirers prepared to follow her in and wait on her at supper. At this moment, one of the powdered menials of the house stepped up and informed her very respectfully that supper was prepared in a separate room for the singers!
Medea, in her most tragic hour, never stood so absolutely the picture of hate as did Grisi for a single instant, in the centre of that aristocratic crowd. Her chest swelled and rose, her lips closed over her snowy teeth, and compressed till the blood left them, and, for myself, I looked unconsciously to see where she would strike. I knew, then, that there was more than fancy—there was nature and capability of the real—in the imaginary passions she plays so powerfully. A laugh of extreme amusement at the scene from the high-born woman who had accompanied her, suddenly turned her humor, and she stopped in the midst of a muttering of Italian, in which I could distinguish only the terminations, and, with a sort of theatrical quickness of transition, joined heartily in her mirth. It was immediately proposed by this lady, however, that herself and their particular circle should join the insulted prima donna at the lower table, and they succeeded by this manœuvre in retaining Rubini and the others, who were leaving the house in a most unequivocal Italian fury.
I had been fortunate enough to be included in the invitation, and with one or two foreign diplomatic men, I followed Grisi and her amused friend to a small room on a lower floor, that seemed to be the housekeeper’s parlor. Here supper was set for six (including the man who had played the piano,) and on the side-table stood every variety of wine and fruit, and there was nothing in the supper, at least, to make us regret the table we had left. With a most imperative gesture and rather an amusing attempt at English, Grisi ordered the servants out of the room, and locked the door, and from that moment the conversation commenced and continued in their own musical, passionate, and energetic Italian. My long residence in that country had made me at home in it; every one present spoke it fluently; and I had an opportunity I might never have again, of seeing with what abandonment these children of the sun throw aside rank and distinction (yet without forgetting it,) and join with those who are their superiors in every circumstance of life in the gayeties of a chance hour.
Out of their own country these singers would probably acknowledge no higher rank than that of the kind and gifted lady who was their guest; yet, with the briefest apology at finding the room too cold after the heat of the concert, they put on their cloaks and hats as a safeguard to their lungs (more valuable to them than to others;) and as most of the cloaks were the worse for travel, and the hats were opera-hats with two corners, the grotesque contrast with the diamonds of one lady, and the radiant beauty of the other, may easily be imagined.
Singing should be hungry work, by the knife and fork they played; and between the excavations of truffle pies, and the bumpers of champagne and burgundy, the words were few. Lablache appeared to be an established droll, and every syllable he found time to utter was received with the most unbounded laughter. Kubini could not recover from the slight he conceived put upon him and his profession by the separate table; and he continually reminded Grisi, who by this time had quite recovered her good humor, that, the night before, supping at Devonshire house, the Duke of Wellington had held her gloves on one side, while His Grace, their host attended to her on the other.
“E vero!” said Ivanhoff, with a look of modest admiration at the prima donna.
“E vero, e bravo!” cried Tamburini, with his sepulchral-talking tone, much deeper than his singing.
“Si, si, si, bravo!” echoed all the company; and the haughty and happy actress nodded all round with a radiant smile, and repeated, in her silver tones, “Grazie! cari amici! grazie!”
As the servants had been turned out, the removal of the first course was managed in pic-nic fashion; and when the fruit and fresh bottles of wine were set upon the table by the attachés, and younger gentlemen, the health of the Princess who honored them by her presence was proposed in that language, which, it seems to me, is more capable than all others of expressing affectionate and respectful devotion. All uncovered and stood up, and Grisi, with tears in her eyes, kissed the hand of her benefactress and friend, and drank her health in silence.
It is a polite and common accomplishment in Italy to improvise in verse, and the lady I speak of is well known among her immediate friends for a singular facility in this beautiful art. She reflected a moment or two with the moisture in her eyes, and then commenced, low and soft, a poem, of which it would be difficult, nay impossible, to convey, in English, an idea of its music and beauty. It took us back to Italy, to its heavenly climate, its glorious arts, its beauty and its ruins, and concluded with a line of which I remember the sentiment to have been, “out of Italy every land is exile!”
The glasses were raised as she ceased, and every one repeated after her, “Fuori d’Italia tutto e esilio!”
“Ma!” cried out the fat Lablache, holding up his glass of champagne, and looking through it with one eye, “siamo ben esiliati qua!” and with a word of drollery, the party recovered its gayer tone, and the humor and wit flowed on brilliantly as before.
The house had long been still, and the last carriage belonging to the company above stairs had rolled from the door, when Grisi suddenly remembered a bird that she had lately bought, of which she proceeded to give us a description that probably penetrated to every corner of the silent mansion. It was a mocking bird, that had been kept two years in the opera house, and between rehearsal and performance had learned parts of everything it had overheard. It was the property of the woman who took care of the wardrobes. Grisi had accidentally seen it, and immediately purchased it for two guineas. How much of embellishment there was in her imitations of her treasure I do not know; but certainly the whole power of her wondrous voice, passion, and knowledge of music, seemed drunk up at once in the wild, various, difficult, and rapid mixture of the capricious melody she undertook. First came, without the passage which it usually terminates, the long throat-down, gurgling, water-toned trill, in which Rubini (but for the bird and its mistress, it seemed to me,) would have been inimitable: then, right upon it, as if it were the beginning of a bar, and in the most unbreathing continuity, followed a brilliant passage from the Barber of Seville run into the passionate prayer of Anna Bolena in her madness, and followed by the air of “Suoni la tromba intrepida,” the tremendous duet in the Puritani, between Tamburini and Lablache. Up to the sky and down to the earth again—away with a note of the wildest gladness, and back upon a note of the most touching melancholy—if the bird but half equals the imitation of his mistress, he were worth the jewel in a sultan’s turban.
“Giulia!” “Giulietta!” “Giuliettina!” cried out one and another as she ceased, expressing in their Italian diminutives, the love and delight she had inspired by her incomparable execution.
The stillness of the house in the occasional pauses of conversation reminded the gay party, at last, that it was wearing late. The door was unlocked, and the half-dozen sleepy footmen hanging about the hall were dispatched for the cloaks and carriages; the drowsy porter was roused from his deep leathern dormeuse, and opened the door—and broad upon the street lay the cold gray light of a summer’s morning. I declined an offer to be set down by a friend’s cab, and strolled off to Hyde Park to surprise myself with a sunrise; balancing the silent rebuke in the fresh and healthy countenances of early laborers going to their toil, against the effervescence of a champagne hour which, since such come so rarely, may come, for me, with what untimeliness they please.