In all ages France and England have carried on an exchange of trifles, which is all the more constant because it evades the tyranny of the Custom-house. The fashion that is called English in Paris is called French in London, and this is reciprocal. The hostility of the two nations is suspended on two points—the uses of words and the fashions of dress. God Save the King, the national air of England, is a tune written by Lulli for the Chorus of Esther or of Athalie. Hoops, introduced at Paris by an Englishwoman, were invented in London, it is known why, by a Frenchwoman, the notorious Duchess of Portsmouth. They were at first so jeered at that the first Englishwoman who appeared in them at the Tuileries narrowly escaped being crushed by the crowd; but they were adopted. This fashion tyrannized over the ladies of Europe for half a century. At the peace of 1815, for a year, the long waists of the English were a standing jest; all Paris went to see Pothier and Brunet in Les Anglaises pour rire; but in 1816 and 1817 the belt of the Frenchwoman, which in 1814 cut her across the bosom, gradually descended till it reached the hips.
Within ten years England has made two little gifts to our language. The Incroyable, the Merveilleux, the Elegant, the three successes of the petit-maitre of discreditable etymology, have made way for the "dandy" and the "lion." The lion is not the parent of the lionne. The lionne is due to the famous song by Alfred de Musset:
Avez vous vu dans Barcelone
. . . . . . C'est ma maitresse et ma lionne.
There has been a fusion—or, if you prefer it, a confusion—of the two
words and the leading ideas. When an absurdity can amuse Paris, which
devours as many masterpieces as absurdities, the provinces can hardly
be deprived of them. So, as soon as the lion paraded Paris with his
mane, his beard and moustaches, his waistcoats and his eyeglass, maintained in its place, without the help of his hands, by the contraction of his cheek, and eye-socket, the chief towns of some departments had their sub-lions, who protested by the smartness of their trouser-straps against the untidiness of their fellow-townsmen.
Thus, in 1834, Besancon could boast of a lion, in the person of
Monsieur Amedee-Sylvain de Soulas, spelt Souleyas at the time of the
Spanish occupation. Amedee de Soulas is perhaps the only man in
Besancon descended from a Spanish family. Spain sent men to manage her
business in the Comte, but very few Spaniards settled there. The
Soulas remained in consequence of their connection with Cardinal
Granvelle. Young Monsieur de Soulas was always talking of leaving
Besancon, a dull town, church-going, and not literary, a military
centre and garrison town, of which the manners and customs and
physiognomy are worth describing. This opinion allowed of his lodging, like a man uncertain of the future, in three very scantily furnished rooms at the end of the Rue Neuve, just where it opens into the Rue de la Prefecture.
Young Monsieur de Soulas could not possibly live without a tiger. This
tiger was the son of one of his farmers, a small servant aged
fourteen, thick-set, and named Babylas. The lion dressed his tiger
very smartly—a short tunic-coat of iron-gray cloth, belted with
patent leather, bright blue plush breeches, a red waistcoat, polished
leather top-boots, a shiny hat with black lacing, and brass buttons
with the arms of Soulas. Amedee gave this boy white cotton gloves and
his washing, and thirty-six francs a month to keep himself—a sum that
seemed enormous to the grisettes of Besancon: four hundred and twenty
francs a year to a child of fifteen, without counting extras! The
extras consisted in the price for which he could sell his turned
clothes, a present when Soulas exchanged one of his horses, and the
perquisite of the manure. The two horses, treated with sordid economy, cost, one with another, eight hundred francs a year. His bills for articles received from Paris, such as perfumery, cravats, jewelry, patent blacking, and clothes, ran to another twelve hundred francs. Add to this the groom, or tiger, the horses, a very superior style of dress, and six hundred francs a year for rent, and you will see a grand total of three thousand francs.