Dandysme » Lady Morgan on dandies in France and England

Lady Morgan on dandies in France and England

Posted by mgr on April 27th, 2008 filed in Zeitdokumente
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It was upon this, and on other similar occasions that I had the opportunity to remark how much less the dandy species is prevalent in France than in England. Coxcombry belongs so little to the tastes and habits of the intellectual and studious youth of that country, or to the popular notions of equality, that the “merveilleux,” (as the Parisian dandy is called) is regarded almost universally as a ridicule, rather than as a model. “His honours cleave not to him,” even “by the aid of use;” and however daily and punctual he may be in his attentions to the toilet, he has always the air of being endimanché:* for he is sure of being exaggerated in every item of the mode, from the fashion of his cravat, to the tie of his shoestring.

The English, however, among the other superiorites which they have generously endeavoured to impart to their French neighbours (such as the theory and practice of the law of libel, aristocratic influence, and the art of managing elections) have very much Anglified the notions of the youth of that class, with which they come into frequent contact, on the subject of dress. There are Frenchmen even of sense and spirit, who have not studied Horace on the dangers of imitation; and who in adopting the neatness, have also appropriated the absurdities of English fashion.

A merveilleux of no inferior grade in the muster roll of Parisian mode, did me the honour to give me his arm the other day, to the Bibliotheque du Roi, for the purpose of deciding a dispute on the dress of Louis the Fourteenth in his young days, by consulting the treasury of costumes, in its cabinet of engravings. As we passed along the Rue Richelieu, I saw a very pretty saut de lit à la giraffe** suspended at a shop door, and labelled at a very reasonable price.

I stopped, and said that I should like to buy that article, if I could but smuggle it over to Ireland.

“Quelle horreur,” exclaimed my dandy, dragging me on. “Such a thing in your maison-bijou, (as M—t—Ho tells me it is) would give it a mauvais ton, from which it would never recover.”

“As how ?” I asked.

“In the first place, because the giraffe has gone completely out of mode, particularly since the arrival of the baleine royale; and, secondly, because it is definitively fixed, that sauts de lit of carpet are to be replaced by tigers’ skins.”

“Is it possible,” I asked, laughing, “that your idol, fashion, has such an universal worship, that even furniture must submit to its ephemeral caprices and tyranny?”

“Caprices!—call them laws, madam, for in general they have all the wisdom and expediency of the best laws; and every thing that is personal should benefit by their operation.”

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* In Etonian English, “a Sunday buck.”
** a bedside carpet.

From: Sydney Morgan: France in 1829-30. London: Saunders and Otley, 1830.

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The French youth of both sexes, of the present generation, are peculiarly distinguished by all the genuine and delightful characteristics of that most delightful period of human existence. Spirited, energetic, frank, and communicative, they have found the order of things, under which they have been brought up, peculiarly favourable to their moral development.  

The military and the scientific education of the young men have acted mutually and favourably upon each other; adding to force and activity, a just appreciation of scientific knowledge, and destroying that false estimate of useless and frivolous acquirements, which made the merit and the charm of the abbés and petit-maîtres of the old regime. None of these fluttering insects now appear, hovering round the toilette, and swarming at the levées of beauty; lisping their critiques on patches and poetry, deciding with importance on a tragedy or a cosmetic, and claiming it as an equal distinction, to judge the merits of an epigram or pronounce on the flounce of a petticoat. Of these “unfinished things” not a trace remains; and I have seen the sudden appearance of a London “dandy” make as great a sensation in a French assembly, by its novelty and incomprehensibility, as when the ornithosynchus paradoxus came to confound the systems, and dislocate the arrangements of the naturalists, as the jardin des plantes, [garden of plants.]  

I was one evening in the apartment of the Princesse de Volkonski (a Russian lady,) awaiting the commencement of one of her pretty Italian operas, when one of these “fashion-mongering boys,” as Beatrice calls them, newly arrived in Paris, appeared at the door of the saloon, flushed with the conscious pride of the toilette, and reconnoitring the company through his glass.  

I had the honour to be recognized by him; he approached, and half yawned, half articulated some enquiries, which he did not wait to be answered, but drawled on to somebody else, whom he distinguished with his notice. A very pleasant little French woman, the daughter of the Comte de L-s-ge, was talking to me, when my English merveilleux [wonder] joined us. Mad. de V— stared at him with unsated curiosity and evident amusement; and when he had passed on asked, “mais qu’est-ce que cela veut dire?” [" But what is all this?"] I answered, “C’est un dandi.” [" It is a dandy !"]  

Un “dandi!’” ["A dandy"] she repeated, “un dandi! c’est donc un genre parmi vous, qu’un dandi?” ["a dandy! it is then a species among you, a dandy?"]  

I replied, “no; rather a variety in the species.” I endeavoured to describe a dandy to her, as well as it would bear definition; asking her, whether there was no pendant [parallel] for it in French society? “Mais, mon Dieu, oui;” ["Oh yes,"] she replied; “nos jeunes duchesses sont à peu-prés des dandis,” [our young duchesses are almost all dandies."]

A few days after this exhibition of dandyism, I met with another of the tribe in the hotel of the Baron Denon. He was a young diplomatist, and added the weight of official solemnity to the usual foppery of a merveilleux. Associating only with his own spy-glass, he passed with languid indifference from one object to another, in the splendid collection he had been brought to see; but without once noticing, by word or look, the eminent and celebrated person, who was so much more worthy of attention, than even the treasures he possessed.

M. Denon, too much amused to be hurt by this want of good manners in his guest, followed him, with a look of pleased attention. I could almost trace in his eye a desire to place this modern curiosity among his Chinese josses, and bamboo pagodas. When this rare specimen of “quaint fashions of the times” took his leave, Mons. D— exclaimed with a smile, and a shrug of the shoulders: “Quel drôle de corps qu’un dandi!” ["What a queer fellow is a dandy!"] I was surprised to find that the Egyptian traveller had so far extended his study of the human character, as to discover at once an English dandy, by its generic character.