FÊTES, PARTIES, AND SOIRÉES.

What a terrible thing it is to give a party in Dublin!

It is no joke even in London, where every thing is to be hired, from the chairs to the company; where “society to let,” has been a sign set up by more than one leader of ton, ready to fill the house of any Mrs. Thompson, or Mrs. Johnson, upon the understood terms of no meddling on the part of the hostess, and no obligation to make a due return on the part of the guests. What is strange in all this toil of pleasure is, that not only the good sort of people have a great deal to do, in getting up a party, but that the great themselves, (such of the great as do not live in the “houses,” modelled on a French hotel,) have nearly as much trouble to make “ample room and verge enough” to suffocate their friends commodiously, as the twaddles in Bloomsbury, the tabbies of Finsbury, or the dwellers in any other terra-incognita of Mr. Croker’s topographical map of fashion.

I once caught a certain “bonnie duchess,” up to her eyes in lamps and loungers, garlands and wax lights, and the rest of the matériel for a party, an hour before the throwing open of her rooms to that “world,” which her talent and pleasantry so long governed and cheered. As I was a Missy, her good-natured grace had bid me come very early, that she might see how I was dressed: for she took a kind interest in me, for no other reason, that I know of, except that I stood in need of it. Early, therefore, I went, but so early, that all the behind-the-scenes bustle was still in its fullest activity.

The Duchess of —— then resided in Lord A—st’s house, which afforded quarters much too circumscribed to hold her legions of fashion; and all her ingenuity was applied, in order to make crushing room for five hundred particular friends. What a hurry-scurry! footmen, still in their jackets, running about with lights to place and replace, like the clerical scene shifters in Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, on a Christmas-eve,—the porter, half-liveried, the page half bedizened, and the French femme-de-chambre, with her hands in the pocket of her silk apron, chattering to every body, and helping nobody!

All this was very striking, but very comfortless; so I sauntered out of one room into another, and had just drawn near to the only fire I met with in the suite, when a loud hammering behind me induced me to look back; and there, mounted on a step-ladder, stood a bulky, elderly lady, in a dimity wrapper, and a round-eared cap, knocking up a garland of laurel over the picture of some great captain of that day, military or political, (I forget which,) while an argand lamp burned brightly before it,—a votive offering to the idol of the moment!

As I took the elderly lady for a housekeeper, I asked her if the duchess was still in her dressing-room? “No, child,” said the elderly lady, “the duchess is here, telle que vous la voyez, doing that which she can get none of her awkward squad to do for her:” and down sprang the active lady of seventy, with a deep inspiration of fatigue, ejaculating, “Gude God, but this pleasure is a toilsome thing.”

So saying, she bustled off, and in less time than could be imagined, re-appeared in the brightest spirits and the brightest diamonds,—I had almost said the brightest looks that illumined her own brilliant circle. Hers was what Horace Walpole calls “the true huckaback of human nature;” and to the last it showed the strength and beauty of the web.

This party turned out one of the most agreeable I ever was at in my life. I spent the evening, seated on the second flight of stairs, between Lady C—— L—— and Monk Lewis. The beautiful Lady Oxford sat a few steps above us, the Aspasia of the Pericles who lay at her feet, wooing in Greek, in spite of Johnson’s denunciation against learning in love; while Payne Knight looked on, with “eyes malign, askance.” On the landing-place beneath, squeezed, sauntered, or halted, many a (now dowager) dandy and top-sawyer of fashion, who received our grape-shot, or gave us a batterie d’enfilade in return, as they crushed on. At two in the morning, Lady C—— L—— proposed that we should go and sup snugly at M—— house, and return to waltz, when her grace’s rooms should thin;—and so we did,—for

But to return to those who “to a party give up what was meant for mankind.” A most interesting book might be made on the philosophy of parties, which would include a brief abstract of the times in which they were given, and throw a glaring light on the manners, habits, and tastes of nations, in all parts of the world, and at all epochs; from the soirées of Aspasia, to my own little soirée last night in Kildare Street. What were the Duchess of G——on’s or Lady C——k’s party-giving talents, great as they were, to those of Cleopatra, to her aquatic party down the Cydnus?—What to this, were the white-bait excursions, or even the Marquis of Hertford’s festivities, on the Thames?

The most splendid fête of modern times was that given by the grand Condé to his cousin Louis the Fourteenth, at Chantilly—memorable for the heroic death of that preux and martyr of the kitchen, Vatel, which forms so amusing a page in that breviary of all that is pleasant, the letters of Madame de Sévigné. The story is told in a hundred other accounts of the fasti of those gorgeous days; but who can relate like her?—No man that ever wrote, not even Horace Walpole, the first of all English raconteurs—nor, except Madame de Staël,⁠[38] any woman either.

The most sumptuous private party of our days was the Boyle Farm entertainment. The relays of shoes were, at least, a novel idea: but pleasure is the end of all social assemblies, (as, under a variety of pompous names, it is of life itself,) and I doubt whether all the shoes in Borsley’s shop would excite one pleasurable sensation except in the possessor of some joli petit pied de Cendrillon. However meritorious, therefore, for its originality, it was, for the rest, altogether English. It encouraged trade, and provided comfort. But the great, the true merit of this partie des notables, was, that to qualify for an invitation, neither genealogical trees, though deeper rooted than that of the Croys,⁠[39] nor all the wealth of all the Rothschilds, sufficed singly and alone, if nature refused to counter-sign the passport of admission. Countesses rejected—Duchesses passed over—and the sovereigns of Almack’s, the absolute queens themselves forgotten, or forbidden, made way for the bel air of nature. Youth, beauty, talent, wit, grace, and agreeability (provided they dressed well) found no exclusion from the extreme exclusionists of all besides. This trait of fashion forms a good augury of times, in which the intrinsic is in all things about to take the lead of the extrinsic. The last touch of perfection in civilization, is a just appreciation of the value of nature.

Parties, as the term is applied throughout Great Britain, to private assemblies, were unknown on the continent, till the late swarming of the English abroad, who carry their own habits with them every where. In France, before the revolution, there was nothing that resembled a London rout. No bals parés, nor fêtes of any kind, were given in Louis the Fourteenth’s time, except to the royal family, by the haute noblesse, or the ministers. Next to the fête at Chantilly, the most sumptuous on record, was the entertainment given at Vaux by the unfortunate intendant, Fouquet, to the King, Queen Dowager, and Madame de la Vallière.

It was a redeeming point in all such festivities, that talent and intellect entered for something. Plays, masques, and interludes were written for the occasion; and it was for Fouquet’s fête, that Molière wrote his delightful comedy of “Les Fâcheux,” an admirable subject for a royal auditory, exposed as all princes are to the tiresomeness of eternal sycophancy.

This fête is also remarkable as an illustration of the falseness, vanity, and feebleness of him for whom it was given, and of the vice of the whole system which prevailed in France, up to the time of the revolution. The king, who had forgiven his minister his exactions from the famishing people, his depredations on the provinces, and his wasteful prodigality of the public money, could not brook the superiority of Vaux over St. Germain, the splendour of a party exceeding anything given at the Louvre or Fontainbleau, and the impression it might make on the heart of his mistress. The ruin of Fouquet, long remotely meditated, was now determined on; and the good taste of his courtiers alone prevented the royal guest from arresting his host, in the very midst of the gaieties got up for his own pleasure and amusement. This party was given on the twentieth of August, and the bienséance of the court put off the arrest of the party giver till the seventh of September.

Opposed to such royal fêtes, a delightful contrast is presented in the private society of Paris, always distinguished as la ville, in opposition to la cour. What charming pictures remain to us of the little côteries of the Hôtel Carnavalet, the suppers at Ninon’s, the soirées of the Hôtels de la Rochefoucauld and Coulange, and the Mercuriali, or Wednesday evenings, of Menage. The circle seldom included more than eight or ten persons, who met to laugh with Molière and Boileau, at the vices of the court, or the absurdities of the Hôtel Rambouillet (the blue-stocking rendez-vous of that day). “Monsieur de Rochefoucauld,” says Madame de Sévigné, “wished me to go to him this evening to hear the reading of a comedy by Molière, ‘Les Précieuses.’ After a joyous supper on a pigeon pie, at Madame de Coulange’s,” (whose own wit was said to be une dignité) “we amused ourselves by going at midnight to fetch Madame de Scarron du fin-fond du Fauxbourg St. Germain, beyond Madame La Fayette’s, and almost at Vaugirard, in the country.” This topographical sketch is worth something, independently of the frolic of the gay grandmother, taken, at midnight, to Vaugirard, from the Marais, where her own hotel stood, and still stands.

Towards the conclusion of Louis the Fourteenth’s reign, from the time when Madame de Maintenon, (no longer the Madame de Scarron of Vaugirard,) brought religious hypocrisy into fashion, the private society of France degenerated, and intellect lost ground. “I hate people that reason,” said the king, sharply, in answer to some clever observation of the son of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld.

La Bruyère describes the décadence of society at this period, with his usual talent for exquisite observation; and in doing so, he has left the following beautiful picture of the style of good company, which prevailed in the private circles of Paris, after the stirring times of the Fronde. “Les conversations légères, les circles, la fine plaisanterie, les lettres enjouées et familières, où l’on étoit admis seulement avec de l’esprit, tout a disparu.”⁠[40] “The women of our days,” he continues, “are either devotees, or coquettes, gamblers, or ambitieuses; some of them are all these at once. The rage for favouritism, play, gallantry, and confessors, has got possession of the fortress, and defends it against the intellectual and the witty.” Still there was always in France a little band of the faithful, to tend the altar and trim the lamp of the true worship; and if, as La Bruyère says, “Voiture and Sarrasin were born for their age, and for the Rambouillets and the Longuevilles, parties as intellectual, and as agreeable, were presided in after times, by D’Alembert, Diderot, De Boufflers, and Guibert, in the drawing-rooms of Mesdames Tencin, Du Deffand, L’Espinasse, and Montmorenci.”

While private society was thus making its progress upon the true principles of ease, pleasure, and intelligence, the descendants of Louis the Fourteenth, and his circle, were kept as close to the precedents established at Versailles and Chantilly, as the age would permit; and the fêtes given at L’Ile Adam, Chantilly, and the Palais Royal, immediately before the revolution, were still directed by un auteur bel esprit, who made as much a part of the household, as the cook or maître d’hôtel. Collé suited his poetry de circonstance to the taste of the Palais Royal; Laujon was the Pastor Fido of the muses and graces of Chantilly; and Pont de Vesle, the egotistical intimate of the egotistical Du Deffand, was the bel esprit of the Prince de Conti, with the title of reader and Sécretaire des commandemens. The poor bel esprit held a most mortifying position between a menial and confidential friend. His privileges were to have a room in the palace, to follow his prince to the country, and to be allowed to come in with the dessert after dinner, and eat ices, standing behind the chairs of his patrons, for three quarters of an hour. These privileges, which were privations, were as mortifying as they were bien constatés!

In England, from Mrs. Masham’s dull political assemblies, to the good routes of modern times, nothing resembling the French soirée existed, if the blue-stocking parties of Mrs. Montague, and the brilliant and refined réunions of Devonshire House are excepted. Bonaparte, who feared the salons of Paris more than the Aulic Council, or the cabinet of St. James’s, discouraged private parties; and taking exception to those of Madame de Staël, sent her to give her little senate laws at Copet. On the return of the Bourbons, the exigencies of the times congregated into small and intimate parties the followers of the different factions: and all Paris was broken up into coteries. In 1818, when things were more firmly established, on avoit changé cela, the English magnates had set the fashion of English routes, and French ladies went about saying, “Only imagine, ten cooks and thirty-two decorators are employed for the rout of my Lady H——.” Great assemblies were affected by all the English, which, generally speaking, consisted of just such English and Irish as nobody in London and Dublin cares to have, with the addition of some of the old emigrant noblesse, provided by certain female purveyors, whose early residence in Paris had exchanged their English obscurity for foreign importance.

As I was perfectly independent of these officious fournisseurs, and knew all that was best worth knowing in France, living, as I should wish to do everywhere, with the fifth part of the world, instead of going to an English rout, I determined on giving French soirées myself.

“Take a day,” said Denon, “and your rooms will never be empty;” and in the confidence of this prophecy, I took my day; nor would I have exchanged some of my Wednesday evenings for all the evenings that dignified the Mercuriali of Menage. With such men, as Denon, Humboldt, La Fayette, Langlés, Ségur, B. Constant, Manuel, De la Rochefoucauld, De Staël, Jay, Jouy, Dupaty, Talma, with half the côté gauche to boot, at my parties, it is little to be wondered at if admissions to them were canvassed as a distinction, particularly by strangers: and many even of the ribboned members of the ultra noblesse, wedged in between a doctrinaire and a modéré, like an anchovy in a sandwich, ventured now and then to peep in, for the purpose of seeing, once in a way, les hommes marquans du siècle—to hear Talma recite, and Jouy read.

On these occasions, one of the great attractions was La Fayette. The moment he appeared (and his erect and noble figure, and lofty air, distinguished him above the rest), a crowd of young men, who had watched for his arrival, followed and surrounded him, and their ardent, upturned faces, and sparkling eyes, formed a striking contrast to the benign serenity of his calm and venerable countenance; while their rapid and eager questions were equally opposed to the measured and emphatic enunciation with which he replied.

It was extremely pleasant on these occasions to see the “avant, pendant, et après” of the revolution united, and forming one piquant and instructive tableau. The presence also of the Marquise de Vilette, with some few of her cotemporaries who still lingered on the surface of society, was always a striking circumstance in the picture: and some little traces of the toilette of 1776 (the epoch when she was by the side of Voltaire, to replace the crown he declined, or to assist him to the fauteuil, the throne of his triumph) were still visible in her dress, along with the miniature of her adopted father, which she always wore, as her order of merit.

In looking over the early pages of my “log-book,” I find the following entry, dated Rue de Helder, Jan. 1819. It is just legible to myself, so I will clear it out, and enter it here as an à propos.

A charming and crowded soirée, not however “pour les beaux yeux de mon mérite,” but because it was known that Talma was to give a scene from Macbeth, and Madame Duchenois to read an act of Jouy’s new tragedy, suppressed by the minister of police. What a congress of talent! The Count de Ségur, Denon, B. Constant, and Langlés in one group; General La Fayette, with the Duc de Broglie, Auguste de Staël, the Marquis Capponi, and the brave Colonel Favier in another; General Berthier in the centre of a circle of pretty women, among whom was the Princesse Jablonowska, whom Napoleon pronounced to be one of the most charming persons of her country, where all the women are charming; and the Comtesse de la Rochefoucauld, with her “grâce, plus belle que la beauté même,” and the Beauveaux, that splendid family which would have been the inspiration of a Titian, and given him brighter models of loveliness than the Famiglia of Cornaro. There was my dear friend the Laird of Bara, in full regimentals, from the réception of the Duc d’Orleans, and a knot of young Americans, with the agreeable members of their embassy. And then, for my Irish quota, there was he of whom it may be said, that he was “né pour tous les siècles et avec tous les talens,”—the last best specimen of Irish wit, and Irish humour, who, whether he talks Greek with Porson, Irish with O’Leary, or French with B. Constant, leaves it in doubt to what age or country he belongs—the delightful P. L——. Then there were my two most distinguished countrywomen, Ladies——, chatting with Lydia White, who always says the best thing that is said in whatever language she speaks; and the Duchess of D——; with her sibyl look drawing off Denon, to talk of those arts she loved so sincerely and protected so liberally. Dupaty also was there, who promised to read us some of his délateurs, and would not; and Jay, and Etienne, and the heart and soul of the Minerve and the Constitutionnel, and Charles Pougens, (as I was told,) for I could not make my way to the anti-room, where, among La Fayette’s belle jeunesse de France, stood the friend of D’Alembert and Diderot, the most agreeable blind man of this or any other country.

Just as Mademoiselle Duchenois and Talma had sat down to the reading table, and began the tragedy which was a censure on its censurers, the Kaimachan of Wallachia came in, all cachemires and turban, embroidery and brilliants. What a sensation among the Parisian petites maîtresses! Here were shawls that might have purchased the whole extreme droit, and sold France back to its old master. What added to the sensation was, that my servant Le Clair announced him as the Persian ambassador,—‘mon illustre confrère,’ in the Freemasons’ Lodge of Belle et Bonne, who had been expected. So it was some minutes before we could get back from the Arabian Nights to our own, which terminated splendidly with Talma’s acting the scene of Macbeth and the witches, thrown into a dream (by Ducis) which Macbeth relates to his wife—a most cold conception, but most wonderfully represented. How much of Talma’s genius was lost, by his being only seen and heard in the immensity of the François! What struck me most was the graphic splendour of Shakspeare’s genius, piercing through the still medium of French declamation—the picturesque vitality of his fine dramatic action, coming out through the tameness of narrative, which, however freely given, (and it was given with a force inconceivable to those who have not seen Talma act in private), is always a tame vehicle when compared with dialogue.

A ball at a banker’s carried off the bel air of my party before midnight: and so Denon, Talma, Langlés, and Madame La Vilette, with some half a dozen others, remained round the fire, to chat. Talma took down from the mantel-piece a book, which had just come in. It was Madame de Genlis’ “Extraits du Dangeau.” “This, at least,” I said, “will bring her into fashion with the Bourbons.” “Not a bit,” said Denon: “they know each other too well.” Talma fell upon the anecdote of the two actors, who were dismissed from the theatre and ruined, because they had displeased the Dauphine par deux sots placets. At this act of littleness, Madame de Genlis cannot restrain her admiration. “If,” she said, “Louis the Eighteenth should dismiss two great actors for want of respect, there would be a general insurrection in society. Yet this event made no sensation in Louis the Fourteenth’s time.”

“Il est passé le bons vieux temps,” sung Talma, from a vaudeville, which Carbonel had been singing. “I remember,” said Madame de Vilette, “when young Vestris sprained his ancle, and could not move, the queen, who had her brother, the Emperor Joseph, in her box, sent behind the scenes to insist on his dancing: ‘Ne fut ce qu’un entré.’ The thing was impossible, and the minister Breteuil immediately signed an order to arrest Vestris, who was sent to La Force.”

Talma shuddered; and Denon told the anecdote of the old Dieu de la Danse on this occasion, “C’est la première brouillerie de notre maison avec la famille des Bourbons.”

I think it was Langlés who said, that the nick-name of La Mère de l’Eglise, by which Madame de Genlis is distinguished among the wicked wits of Paris, is not a modern malice. It was given her on occasion of her publishing “La Religion Considérée,” &c., a deep theological work, written when she was the platonic friend of Egalité. This Christian work was a most unchristian attack on the philosophers, whom she hated, as mothers of the church alone know how to hate.

“The actor’s privilege, however,” said Talma, “of being insolent, did not compensate the degradation of the caste, whose liberty and life were at the mercy of every court favorite, from the prince of the blood to his valet de chambre.”

“Still,” I said, “the actors had a fine time of it under Louis the Fourteenth. It was an allusion to the wealth and consequence of La Dancour, that La Bruyère has said, that the actor, lolling in his carriage, casts its mud in the face of Corneille, who goes on foot.”

“Yes,” said Talma, “but La Bruyère has also said, that we in France think of the actors like the Romans, and live with them like the Greeks.”

“The favour of the great,” said M., “unaccompanied by their esteem, is not a distinction, but a disgrace.”

The conversation reverted to Dangeau, Madame de Genlis, and Demontey’s amusing extracts from the same work, which form the most humorous comment that could be given on Madame de Genlis. Madame de Sévigné had long since made hers, when describing a day at Versailles, “On parle sans cesse, et rien ne demeure sur le cœur; et Dangeau est ravit de tout ce caquet.”⁠[41] What a motto for his book!