The Ways of Men [30]
see that carriage?" pointing in the print to a high-swung family vehicle with a powdered coachman on the box, and two sky-blue lackeys standing behind. "I can remember, as if it were yesterday, going to drive with Lady B-, the British ambassadress, in just such a conveyance. She drove four horses with feathers on their heads, when she used to come to Meurice's for me. I blush when I think that my frock was so scant that I had to raise the skirt almost to my knees in order to get into her carriage.
"Why we didn't all die of pneumonia is another marvel, for we wore low-necked dresses and the thinnest of slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two curls, `as damp and as black as leeches.' In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; we wore light scarves over our necks, and rarely used furlined pelisses."
Returning to an examination of the panorama, my companion pointed out to me that there was no break in the boulevards, where the opera-house, with its seven radiating avenues, now stands, but a long line of Hotels, dozing behind high walls, and quaint two-storied buildings that undoubtedly dated from the razing of the city wall and the opening of the new thoroughfare under Louis XV.
A little farther on was the world-famous Maison Doree, where one almost expected to see Alfred de Musset and le docteur Veron dining with Dumas and Eugene Sue.
"What in the name of goodness is that?" I exclaimed, pointing to a couple of black and yellow monstrosities on wheels, which looked like three carriages joined together with a "buggy" added on in front.
"That's the diligence just arrived from Calais; it has been two days EN ROUTE, the passengers sleeping as best they could, side by side, and escaping from their confinement only when horses were changed or while stopping for meals. That high two-wheeled trap with the little `tiger' standing up behind is a tilbury. We used to see the Count d'Orsay driving one like that almost every day. He wore butter-colored gloves, and the skirts of his coat were pleated full all around, and stood out like a ballet girl's. It is a pity they have not included Louis Philippe and his family jogging off to Neuilly in the court `carryall,' - the `Citizen King,' with his blue umbrella between his knees, trying to look like an honest bourgeois, and failing even in that attempt to please the Parisians.
"We were in Paris in '48; from my window at Meurice's I saw poor old JUSTE MILIEU read his abdication from the historic middle balcony of the Tuileries, and half an hour later we perceived the Duchesse d'Orleans leave the Tuileries on foot, leading her two sons by the hand, and walk through the gardens and across the Place de la Concorde to the Corps Legislatif, in a last attempt to save the crown for her son. Futile effort! That evening the `Citizen King' was hurried through those same gardens and into a passing cab, EN ROUTE for a life exile.
"Our balcony at Meurice's was a fine point of observation from which to watch a revolution. With an opera-glass we could see the mob surging to the sack of the palace, the priceless furniture and bric-a-brac flung into the street, court dresses waved on pikes from the tall windows, and finally the throne brought out, and carried off to be burned. There was no keeping the men of our party in after that. They rushed off to have a nearer glimpse of the fighting, and we saw no more of them until daybreak the following morning when, just as we were preparing to send for the police, two dilapidated, ragged, black-faced mortals appeared, in whom we barely recognized our husbands. They had been impressed into service and passed their night building barricades. My better half, however, had
"Why we didn't all die of pneumonia is another marvel, for we wore low-necked dresses and the thinnest of slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two curls, `as damp and as black as leeches.' In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; we wore light scarves over our necks, and rarely used furlined pelisses."
Returning to an examination of the panorama, my companion pointed out to me that there was no break in the boulevards, where the opera-house, with its seven radiating avenues, now stands, but a long line of Hotels, dozing behind high walls, and quaint two-storied buildings that undoubtedly dated from the razing of the city wall and the opening of the new thoroughfare under Louis XV.
A little farther on was the world-famous Maison Doree, where one almost expected to see Alfred de Musset and le docteur Veron dining with Dumas and Eugene Sue.
"What in the name of goodness is that?" I exclaimed, pointing to a couple of black and yellow monstrosities on wheels, which looked like three carriages joined together with a "buggy" added on in front.
"That's the diligence just arrived from Calais; it has been two days EN ROUTE, the passengers sleeping as best they could, side by side, and escaping from their confinement only when horses were changed or while stopping for meals. That high two-wheeled trap with the little `tiger' standing up behind is a tilbury. We used to see the Count d'Orsay driving one like that almost every day. He wore butter-colored gloves, and the skirts of his coat were pleated full all around, and stood out like a ballet girl's. It is a pity they have not included Louis Philippe and his family jogging off to Neuilly in the court `carryall,' - the `Citizen King,' with his blue umbrella between his knees, trying to look like an honest bourgeois, and failing even in that attempt to please the Parisians.
"We were in Paris in '48; from my window at Meurice's I saw poor old JUSTE MILIEU read his abdication from the historic middle balcony of the Tuileries, and half an hour later we perceived the Duchesse d'Orleans leave the Tuileries on foot, leading her two sons by the hand, and walk through the gardens and across the Place de la Concorde to the Corps Legislatif, in a last attempt to save the crown for her son. Futile effort! That evening the `Citizen King' was hurried through those same gardens and into a passing cab, EN ROUTE for a life exile.
"Our balcony at Meurice's was a fine point of observation from which to watch a revolution. With an opera-glass we could see the mob surging to the sack of the palace, the priceless furniture and bric-a-brac flung into the street, court dresses waved on pikes from the tall windows, and finally the throne brought out, and carried off to be burned. There was no keeping the men of our party in after that. They rushed off to have a nearer glimpse of the fighting, and we saw no more of them until daybreak the following morning when, just as we were preparing to send for the police, two dilapidated, ragged, black-faced mortals appeared, in whom we barely recognized our husbands. They had been impressed into service and passed their night building barricades. My better half, however, had