These elegant gentlemen were sometimes adventurers in pursuit of a rich wife, sometimes intelligent and well-informed travellers, and sometimes the agents of some foreign banking-house, for the drummer was not yet invented. If they were furnished with satisfactory credentials, the fathers of Gotham introduced them into their domestic circle, usually warning their daughters never to think of them as husbands,--a warning which, naturally, would sometimes defeat its own object.
I must here be allowed to say one word concerning the French novel, which, since that time, has here and there affected the tone of our society. In the days of which I speak, brothers who returned from Europe brought with them the romances of Balzac and Victor Hugo, which their sisters surreptitiously read. We heard also with a sort of terror of George Sand, the evil woman, who wrote such somnambulic books. We pictured to ourselves the wicked delight of reading them; and presently some friend confidentially lent us the forbidden volumes, which our Puritan nurture and habit of life did much to render harmless and not quite clear in meaning.
I should say that the works of Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Sue had each exerted an appreciable influence upon the social atmosphere of this country. Of these four, Balzac was the least popular, having long been known only to readers acquainted with the French language. George Sand first became widely recognized through her "Consuelo." Victor Hugo's popular fame dates from "Les Miserables," and "The Mysteries of Paris" opened the doors to Eugène Sue, and _Rigolette_ and _Fleur de Marie_, new types of character to most of us, appeared upon the stage.
Still nearer was Paris brought to us by Carlyle's work on the French Revolution, which, falling like a compact and burning coal upon the American imagination, reddened the sober twilight of our firesides with the burning passion and frenzy of that great drama of enthusiasm and revenge. And here, lest I should entirely reverse the order in which historic things should be spoken of, let me dismiss those early memories, and, having shown you something of the far-reaching influence of the city, let me speak of it from nearer sight and study.