Olla Podrida

But, until the opening of the Continent, the English were only voyageurs, not travellers; and that, after having been so long debarred, they should be desirous of visiting the various portions of Europe, is not only natural but praiseworthy; but that they should make the Continent their residence—should expatriate themselves altogether, is, to me, a source of astonishment as well as of regret.

The excuse offered is the cheapness. It is but an excuse, for I deny it to be the fact: I have visited most places, with and without a family; and I will positively assert, not for the benefit of others who have already expatriated themselves, but as a check to those who feel so inclined, that they will discover too soon that, at less expense, they can command more good living and substantial comforts in England, than in any part of the Continent they may fix upon as their habitation.

Let us enter a little into the subject. First, as to the capitals, Paris, Brussels, etcetera.

Let it first be remembered that we have no longer war prices in England, that almost every article has fallen from thirty-five to fifty per cent. It is true that some tradespeople who are established as fashionable keep up their prices; but it is not absolutely necessary to employ them, as there are those equally skilled who are more moderate. But even the most fashionable have been obliged, to a certain degree, to lower their prices; and their present prices, reduced as they are, will most assuredly die with them.

Everything will, by degrees, find its level; but this level is not to be found at once. Should peace continue, ten years from this date will make a great alteration in every article, not only of necessity, but of luxury; and then, after having been the dearest, England will become the cheapest residence in the world. House rent in the capitals abroad is certainly as dear, if not dearer than it is in England. There are situations more or less fashionable in every metropolis; and if you wish to reside in those quarters, you pay accordingly. It is true that, by taking a portion of a house, you to a certain degree indemnify yourself;—a first, second, or third story, with a common staircase loaded with dirt and filth; but is this equal to the comfort of a clean English house, in which you have your own servants, and are not overlooked by your neighbours? If they were to let out houses in floors in England as they do in Paris and elsewhere, a less sum would be demanded. You may procure a handsome house in a fashionable quarter, well furnished, in London, for 300 pounds per annum. Go to the Place Vendôme, or those quarters styled the English quarters, at Paris, and which are by no means the most fashionable quarters, and you will pay for a handsome front floor 700 francs per month; so that for one floor of a house in Paris you will pay 336 pounds per annum, when in London you will obtain the whole house for 300 pounds. The proprietor of the Paris house, therefore, receives much more by letting his floors separate than the English do. The common articles of necessity are as dear, if not dearer abroad; the octroi duty upon all that enters the barriers raising the price excessively. Meat at Paris or Brussels is as dear as in London, and not so good; it is as dear, because they charge you the same price all round, about 5 pence per pound, independent of its inferiority and the villainous manner in which it is cut up. Our butchers only butcher the animal, but foreign butchers butcher the meat. Poultry is as dear; game much dearer; and so is fish. Indeed, fish is not only dear, but scarce and bad. Horses and carriages are quite as dear abroad, in the capitals, as in London. Clothes are in some respects cheaper, in others dearer, especially articles of English manufacture, which are more sought after than any others.

Amusements are said to be cheaper; but, admitting that, the places of amusement are oftener resorted to, and in consequence as much money is spent abroad as in England. It is true that there are an immense number of theatres in Paris, and that most of them are very reasonable in their charges for admission; but be it recollected that there are not above three of them which are considered fashionable, if even respectable; and there the prices are sufficiently high. If people went to Sadler’s Wells, the Coburg, Victoria, Queen’s Theatre, Astley’s, and other minor theatres in London, as they do to the Theatres Saint Martin, Gymnase, et Variétés at Paris, they would find no great difference in the prices.

What then is there cheaper? Wine. I grant it; and, it is also asserted, the education of children. We will pass over these two last points for the present, and examine whether living is cheaper on the Continent, provided you do not hive in any of the capitals.

That at Tours and other places in the south of France, at Genoa, at Bruges, in Belgium, you may live cheaper than in London, I grant; but if any one means to assert that you can live cheaper than in the country in England, I deny it altogether. People go abroad, and select the cheapest parts of the Continent to live in. If they were to do the same in England, they would find that they could live much cheaper and much better; for instance, in Devonshire, Cornwall, and Wales, and, indeed, in almost every county in England.

The fact is, it is not the cheapness of the living which induces so many people to reside abroad. There are many reasons; and as I wish to be charitable, I will put forward the most favourable ones.

In England, we are money-making people, and we have the aristocracy of wealth as well as the aristocracy of rank. It has long been the custom for many people to live beyond their incomes, and to keep up an appearance which their means have not warranted. Many, especially the landed proprietors, finding their rentals reduced from various causes, have been necessitated to retrench. They were too proud to put down their carriages and establishments before the eyes of those who had perhaps looked upon them with envy, and whose derision or exultation they anticipated. They therefore have retired to the Continent, where a carriage is not necessary to prove that you are a gentleman. Should those return who have emigrated for the above reasons, they would find that this striving for show is hardly perceptible now in England. Those who have remained have either had sense enough, or have been forced by circumstances, to reduce their expenditure.

Another cause is the easy introduction into what is called good society abroad on the Continent, but which is in reality very bad society. Certainly there are a sufficient number of Counts, Viscounts, and Marquesses to associate with; but in France high birth is not proved by titles, which are of little or no value, and do not even establish gentility. This society may certainly be entered into at a much less expense than that of England, especially in the metropolis; but, depend upon it, there is a species of society dear at any price.

With respect to education of children, that boys may receive advantage from a Continental education I admit; but woe be to the mother who intrusts her daughter to the ruin of a French Pension!

In England there are many excellent schools in the country, as cheap and cheaper than on the Continent: but the schoolmasters near London, generally speaking, are ruining them by their adherence to the old system, and their extravagant terms. The system of education on the Continent is certainly superior to that of England, and the attention to the pupils is greater: of course there are bad schools abroad as well as in England; but the balance is much in favour of those on the Continent, with the advantage of being at nearly one-half the expense. A great alteration has taken place in modern education; the living languages and mathematics have been found to be preferable to the classics and other instruction still adhered to in the English schools.

I have always considered, and have every reason to be confirmed in my opinion, that the foundation of all education is mathematics. Every thing else may be obtained by rote, and without thinking; but from the elements of arithmetic up to Euclid and algebra, no boy can work his task without thinking. I never yet knew a man who was a good mathematician who was not well-informed upon almost every point; and the reason is clear—mathematics have prepared his mind to receive and retain. In all foreign schools this important branch of education is more attended to than it is in England; and that alone would be a sufficient reason for me to give them the preference. In point of morals, I consider the schools of both countries much upon a par; although, from the system abroad of never debasing a child by corporal punishment, I give the foreign schools the preference even in that point.

I consider, then, that boys are better educated abroad than in England, and acquire much more correctly the living languages, which are of more use to them than the classics. So much I can say in favour of the Continent; but in every other respect I consider the advantage in favour of England. Young women who have been brought up abroad I consider, generally speaking, as unfitted for English wives; and that in this opinion I am not singular, I know well from conversation with young men at the clubs and elsewhere. Mothers who have returned with their daughters full of French fashions and ideas, and who imagine that they will inevitably succeed in making good matches, would be a little mortified and surprised to hear the young men, when canvassing among themselves the merits of the other sex, declare that “such a young lady may be very handsome and very clever, but she has received a Continental education, and that won’t do for them.” Many mothers imagine, because their daughters, who are bold and free in their manners, and talk and laugh loud, are surrounded by young men, while the modest girl, who holds aloof, is apparently neglected, that their daughters are more admired; but this is a great mistake. Men like that boldness, that coquetry, that dash, if I may use the term, because it amuses for the time being; but although they may pay attention to women on that account, marrying them is quite another affair. No: the modest retiring girl, who is apparently passed by, becomes the wife; the others are flattered before their faces, and laughed at behind their backs. It certainly is unmanly, on the part of our sex, to behave in this manner, to encourage young women in their follies, and ruin them for their own amusement; as Shakespeare says:—

“Shame to him whose cruel strikingKills for faults of his own liking.”

But so it is, and so it will be so long as the world lasts, and mankind is no better than it is at present.

If then, as I have asserted, there is so little to be gained by leaving a comfortable home, what is the inducement which takes so many people abroad to settle there? I am afraid that the true reason has been given by the author whom I now quote. Speaking of the French metropolis, she says—

“I have been lately trying to investigate the nature of the charm which renders Paris so favourite a sojourn of the English.

“In point of gaiety (for gaiety read dissipation) it affords nothing comparable with that of London. A few ministerial fêtes every winter may perhaps exceed in brilliancy the balls given in our common routine of things; but for one entertainment in Paris at least thirty take place chez nous. Society is established with us on a wider and more splendid scale. The weekly soirées, on the other hand, which properly represent the society of this place, are dull, meagre, and formal to the last degree of formality. There is no brilliant point of reunion as at Almack’s,—no theatre uniting, like our Italian Opera, the charm of the best company, the best music, and the best dancing. Of the thousand and one theatres boasted of by the Parisians, only three are of a nature to be frequented by people of consideration, the remainder being as much out of the question as the Pavilion or the Garrick. Dinner parties there are none; water parties none; déjeûners, unless given by a foreign ambassadress, none. A thousand accessories to London amusements are here wanting. In the month of May, I am told, the public gardens and the Bois de Boulogne become enchanting. But what is not charming in the month of May? Paris, perhaps, least of all places; for at the commencement of the month every French family of note quits the metropolis for its country seat, or for sea or mineral bathing. Foreigners and the mercantile and ministerial classes alone remain. What, then, I would fain discover, constitutes the peculiar merit of inducing persons uninstigated by motives of economy to fix themselves in the comfortless and filthy city, and call it Paradise? Alas! my solution of the problem is far from honourable to the taste of our absentees. In Paris people are far less amenable than in London to the tribunal of public opinion; or, as a lady once very candidly said to me, ‘One gets rid of one’s friends and relations.’”

Indeed, there are so many petty annoyances and vexatious of life attendant upon residents abroad, that it must require some strong motives to induce them to remain. Wherever the English settle they raise the price of everything, much to the annoyance of the rentiers and respectable people of the place, although of advantage to the country generally. The really highbred and aristocratic people will not associate with the English, and look upon them with any feeling but good will. With regard to servants, they are invariably badly served, although they pay two or three times the wages that are paid by the inhabitants, who, in most places, have made it a rule never to take a domestic that has once lived in an English family; the consequence is that those engaged by the English are of the worst description, a sort of pariahs among the community, who extort and cheat their employers without mercy. If not permitted so to do, they leave them at a minutes warning; and you cannot go to any foreign colony of English people without listening to very justified tirades of the villany of the servants. Upon the same principle, there are few places abroad where the tradespeople have not two prices; one for the English, and the other for the inhabitants.

I was in company with an English lady of title, who gave me a very amusing instance of the insolence of the Belgian servants. She had a large family to bring up on a limited income, and had taken up her abode at Brussels. It should be observed that the Belgians treat their servants like dogs, and yet it is only with the Belgians that they will behave well. This lady, finding her expenses very much exceeding her means, so soon as she had been some time in the country, attempted a reformation. Inquiring of some Belgian families with whom she was acquainted what were the just proportions allowed by them to their servants, she attempted by degrees to introduce the same system. The first article of wasteful expenditure was bread, and she put them upon an allowance. The morning after she was awoke with a loud hammering in the saloon below, the reason of which she could not comprehend; but on going down to breakfast she found one of the long loaves made in the country nailed up with tenpenny nails over the mantelpiece. She sent to inquire who had done it, and one of the servants immediately replied that she had nailed it there that my lady might see that the bread did not go too fast.

There is another point on which the English abroad have long complained, and with great justice,—which is, that in every litigation or petty dispute which may appear before a smaller or more important tribunal, from the Juge de Paix to the Cour de Cassation, the verdict invariably is given against them. I never heard an instance to the contrary, although there may have been some. In no case can an Englishman obtain justice; the detention of his property without just cause, all that he considers as law and justice in his own country, is overruled: he is obliged to submit to the greatest insults, or consent to the greatest imposition. This is peculiarly, observable at Paris and Brussels, and it is almost a jour de fête to a large portion of the inhabitants when they hear that an Englishman has been thrown into prison. It must, however, be acknowledged that most of this arises not only from the wish of the rentiers, or those who live upon their means (who have these means crippled by the concourse of English raising the price of every article), that the English should leave and return to their own country; but also from the number of bad characters who, finding their position in society no longer tenable in England, hasten abroad, and, by their conduct, leave a most unfavourable impression of the English character, which, when Englishmen only travelled, stood high, but, now they reside to economise, is at its lowest ebb; for the only charm which the English had in the eyes of needy foreigners was their lavishing their money as they passed through the country, enriching a portion of the community without increasing the prices of consumption to the whole.

As a proof of the insolence to which the English are subjected, I will give the reader a verbatim copy of a letter sent to me by a friend not more than a year ago. I have heard of such a circumstance taking place in France, but then the innkeeper was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour; but this case is even more remarkable. Depend upon it, those who travel will find many a Monsieur Disch before they are at the end of their journey. I will vouch for the veracity of every word in the letter:—

“Wisbaden, July 3, 1836.

“My Dear —, As you kindly said that you would be glad to hear of our progress when any opportunity offered of writing you a letter, I now avail myself of some friends passing through Brussels to let you know that thus far we have proceeded in health and safety; but whether we shall complete our project of wintering in Italy seems more and more doubtful, as I believe the cholera to be doing its work pretty actively in some of the states we propose to visit; and a gentleman told me yesterday, who has lately left the country, that the Pope is so glad of an excuse to keep heretics out of his dominions, that he has never taken off the quarantine: so that, under any circumstances, we must vegetate in some frontier hole for a fortnight before we can be admitted; a circumstance in itself sufficiently deterring, in my opinion. Besides which, what with the perplexity of the coinage, and the constant attempt at pillage which we have already met with, and which, I am told, is quadrupled on the other side of the Alps, such a counterbalance exists to any of the enjoyments of travelling, that I am heartily weary of the continual skirmishing and warfare I am subjected to;—warfare indeed, as at Cologne I was called out. The story is too good to be lost, so I will tell it for your amusement and that of our friends at Brussels; moreover that you may caution every one against Mons. Disch, of the Cour Imperiale:– We had marchandéed with Madame Disch for rooms, who at last agreed to our terms; but when the bill came, she changed her own. We remonstrated, and the bill was altered; but Mons. Disch made his appearance before I could pay it, insisting on the larger sum, saying his wife had no business to make a bargain for him. I remonstrated in vain, and Mrs – commenced most eloquently to state the case: he was, however, deaf to reason, argument, eloquence, and beauty. At last I said, ‘Do not waste words the matter, I will pay the fellow and have done with him, taking care that neither I nor my friends will ever come to his house again,’ at the same time snatching the bill from his hand when he demanded, in a great fury, what I meant by that; exclaiming, ‘I am Germans gentlemans,—you English gentlemans, I challenge you—I challenge you.’ Although somewhat wroth before this. I was so amused that I laughed in the rascal’s face, which doubled his rage, and he reiterated his mortal defiance; adding,—‘I was in London last year; they charge me twelve—fourteen shillings for my dinner at coffee-house, but I too much gentlemans to ask them take off one farding. I challenge you—I challenge you.’ I then said, ‘Hold your tongue, sir; take your money and be off.’ ‘Me take money!’ replied he; ‘me take money! No, my servant take money; I too much gentlemans to take money.’ Upon which the waiter swept the cash off the table, handed it to his master, who immediately sacked it and walked off.”

I certainly have myself come to the conclusion that the idea of going abroad for economy is most erroneous. As I have before observed, the only article, except education, which is cheaper, is wine; and I am afraid, considering the thirsty propensities of my countrymen, that is a very strong attraction with the nobler sex. If claret and all other French wines were admitted into England at a much lower duty, they would be almost as cheap in England as they are in foreign capitals; and, as the increased consumption would more than indemnify the government, it is to be lamented that it is not so arranged.—Formerly we shut out the French wines, and admitted those of Portugal, as our ancient ally; but our ancient ally has shown any thing but good-will towards us lately, and we are at all events under no further obligation to support her interests. Let us admit French wines in bottles at a very low duty, and then England will be in every respect as cheap, and infinitely more comfortable as a residence than any part of the Continent. The absentees who are worth reclaiming will return; those who prefer to remain on the Continent are much better there than if they were contaminating their countrymen with their presence. How true is the following observation from the author I before quoted on her return from abroad:—

“Home, home at last. How clean, how cheerful, how comfortable! I was shown at Marthien the shabby, dirty-looking lodgings where the – are economising, in penance for the pleasure of one little year spent in this charming house! Poor people! How they must long for England! how they must miss the thousand trivial but essential conveniences devised here for the civilisation of human life! What an air of decency and respectfulness about the servants! what a feeling of homeishness in a house exclusively our own! The modes of life may be easier on the Continent,—but it is the ease of a beggar’s ragged coat which has served twenty masters, and is twitched off and on till it scarcely holds together, in comparison with the decent, close-fitting suit characteristic of a gentleman.”

Chapter Thirty

Brussels.

Authors, like doctors, are very apt to disagree. Reading, the other day, a very amusing publication, called the “Diary of a Désennuyée,” some passages in it induced me to fall back upon Henry Bulwer’s work on France. Among his remarks upon literary influence in that country, he has the following:—

“A literary Frenchman, whom I met not long ago in Paris, said to me that a good-natured young English nobleman, whom I will not name, had told him that dancers and singers were perfectly well received in English society, but not men of letters.

“‘Est il possible qu’on soit si barbare chez vous?’”

He subsequently adds:– “To be known as a writer is certainly to your prejudice.

“First, people presume you are not what they call a gentleman; and the grandfather who, if you were a banker or a butcher, or of any other calling or profession, would be left quiet in his tomb, is evoked against you.”

Mr Bulwer then proceeds with a variety of argument to prove that literary men are not Maecenased by either the government or aristocracy of Great Britain. He points out the advantages which the French literati have from their Institute, the ennoblements, the decorations, and pensions which they receive; and certainly makes out a strong case.

The author of the “Diary” would attempt to deny the statements of Mr Bulwer; but, in the very denial, she admits all his points but one—to wit that they are not so well received by the aristocracy in England as they are in France.

She says—

“What does Henry Bulwer mean by the assertion that literary men are more eagerly welcomed in society here than in England?

“They occupy, perhaps, a more independent and honourable position, are less exposed to being lionised by patronising dowagers, and more sure of obtaining public preferment; but, with the exception of Mignet and Mérimée—who are courted for their personal merits and official standing rather than for their literary distinctions—I have scarcely met one of them. To the parties of the ministers of the Grand Referendaire, and other public functionaries, artists and men of letters are admitted as part of a political system; but they are not to be found—like Moore, Rogers, Chantrey, Newton, and others—in the boudoirs of the élite, or the select fêtes of a Devonshire House.