To speak French with ease was, in those days, considered the most desirable of accomplishments. The elegance of French manners was commended in all polite circles. The services of General Lafayette were held up to children as deserving their lifelong remembrance and gratitude.
But the culmination of the _Gallomania_ was seen in the millinery of the period; and I must confess that my earliest views of this were enjoyed within the precincts of a certain Episcopal sanctuary which then stood first upon the dress-list, and, like Jove among the gods, without a second. This establishment retained its pre-eminence of toilet for more than thirty years after the time of which I speak, and perhaps does so still. I have now lived so long in Boston that I should be obliged to consult New York authorities if I wished to be able to say decidedly whether the well-known Grace Church of that city still deserves to be called "The Church of the Holy Milliner." A little child's fancy naturally ran riot in a field of bonnets so splendid and showy, and, however admonished to listen to the minister, I am afraid that a raid upon the flowers and plumes so lavishly displayed before me would have offered more attractions to my tender mind than any itinerary of the celestial journey of which I should have been likely to hear in that place.
The French dancing-master of that period taught us gambols and flourishes long since banished from the domain of social decorum. Being light and alert, I followed his prescriptions with joy, and learned with patience the lessons set me by the French mistress, who, while leading us through Florian's tales and La Fontaine's fables, did not forget to impress upon us her conviction that to be French was to be virtuous, but to be Parisian was to be perfect.
Let me now pass on to the years of my youngladyhood, when New York reflected Paris on a larger scale. The distinguished people of the society to which my youth was related either had been to Paris or expected to go there very shortly. Our circles were sometimes electrified by the appearance of a well-dressed and perfumed stranger, wearing the moustache which was then strictly contraband in the New York business world, and talking of manners and customs widely different from our own.