Frenchman

“ A finer subject could not offer itself to a Frenchman than the long reign in which France, seeming, at a bound, to emerge from a base condition of manners, of public morals, of government, and of policy, stood forth resplendent in letters, arts, arms, statecraft, and social refinement. ”

“ Such harmless trivialities—for trivialities they must be called—are indulged in by men who are the honor and joy of their homes.
Let me tell you this: Whenever you hear a Frenchman speak ill of himself, do not believe him, he is merely boasting. Be sure that nothing is more true. I shall never say anything more true so long as I live.
We French hide our virtues and do not like to be reproached with them. ”

“ What a number of sins does the cheerful, easy good-breeding of the French frequently cover? Many of them want common sense, many more common learning; but in general, they make up so much by their manner, for those defects, that frequently they pass undiscovered: I have often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who, with a fund of virtue, learning and good sense, has the manners and good-breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. ”

“ The Frenchman, however, is never so happy himself, nor, may we say, so entertaining to his neighbours, as when his tongue and his pen are giving effect to the ready wit that seems always at his service. ”

“ Give me the homeliest manners of the homeliest corner of Europe—nay, give me the honest rudeness of the American savage, in preference to this arrogant assumption of an empty superiority. Why, the very tone in which every Frenchman, from fifteen to five-and-forty, utters the words "la France," is enough to raise the laugh, or make the blood boil, of all mankind. ”

“ On my honour, experience will convince you of its truth. A Frenchman neither hears, sees, nor breathes, but as his master directs; and his whole system of conduct is compris'd in one short word, Obedience! ”

“ A bold, valorous Frenchman with a flawless title, and washed whiter than snow by the freshet of holy water, might prove a more formidable claimant to the allegiance of Frenchmen than a foreign potentate, even though backed by all the doctors of the Sorbonne. ”

“ A Frenchman, as distinguished by birth, as by the nobleness and independence of his character, and who has thoroughly studied the country which these writers have feebly pretended to pourtray, is desirous to evince his gratitude to the generous nation which has provided him an asylum, at the same time that it has preserved to the French their King and their Princes. ”

“ But a Frenchman, while he knows that his king is of the same nature, and liable to all the weaknesses of other men; while he enumerates his follies, and laughs as he laments them, is nevertheless attached to him by a sentiment of equal respect and tenderness ”

“ Herein may be seen another of the good qualities of the French, who rank above other nations by so many titles. To a Frenchman a foreigner is a sacred being; he receives the best of hospitality, not merely in form, but in deed; and his welcome is given with that easy grace which so soon sets a stranger at his ease.
My new friend introduced me to the professor, who received me with all the polished courtesy of the French man of letters. ”

“ Yet, through all these absurdities, you will always see good-breeding prevail in this society, and the disposition which distinguishes a Frenchman from other polished nations, will here break forth and present itself to you in a striking manner. ”

“ Their excessive frivolity is perhaps even more remarkable than their gaiety; they have not sufficient steadiness for the uninterrupted avocations of graver life. In the midst of the most serious or deep discussion, a Frenchman will suddenly stop, and, with a look of perhaps more solemn importance than he bestowed upon the subject of debate, will adjust the ruffle of his brother savant, adding some observation on the propriety of adorning the exterior as well as the interior of science. ”

“ Couple with these peculiarities of the language the circumstance that the French term spirituel means simply witty, with a certain quickness, delicacy, and versatility of mind, and have you not a real insight into the national character?
It is said that the word oftenest on a Frenchman’s lips is la gloire, and next to that, perhaps, is brillant, “brilliant.” The utility of a feat or achievement in literature or science, in war or politics, surgery or mechanics, is of little moment in his eyes unless it also dazzles and excites surprise. ”

“ The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk,
Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of misery far away:
He drinks his simple beverage with a gust; ”

“ A Frenchman may be an unkind husband, a severe parent, or an arrogant master, yet never contract his features, or asperate his voice, and for this reason is, in the national sense, "un homme bien doux." ”

“ Among all the traits which distinguish Frenchmen from natives of every country, none is more prominent than a kind of never-failing elasticity of temperament, which seems almost to defy all the power of misfortune to depress. Let what will happen, the Frenchman seems to possess some strong resource within himself, in his ardent temperament, upon which he can draw at will ”

“ The Frenchmen are looked upon by the simple rustics as the very impersonification of iniquity, they being under a sort of impression that a Frenchman is a being who defies God and man alike, and would think no bones of eating you up. ”

“ An under-bred Frenchman is the most offensive civil thing in the world: a well-bred Frenchman, quite the reverse.—Having dined at the table of a person of fashion at Aix, a pert priest, one the company, asked me many questions relative to the customs and manners of the English nation ”

“ Those normal but most repellent aspects of the case, which the Frenchman treats openly and exhaustively, the Englishman ignores or rejects. His theory of civilization is built up largely—and wisely—on suppression. ”

“ In three years every Frenchman can know how to read. Do you think that we shall be the better off? Imagine on the other hand that in each commune, there was ONE bourgeois, only one, who had read Bastiat, and that this bourgeois was respected, things would change. ”

“ In speaking of foreigners the reverse of the English rule is observed. No matter what the title of a Frenchman is, he is always addressed as Monsieur, and you never omit the word Madame, whether addressing a duchess or a dressmaker. ”

“ The good feeling of the well-bred, and liberal minded Frenchman, is ever here, manifested towards the English, in a variety of pleasing demonstrations, constituting a series of practical illustrations of that native politeness, for which he is pre-eminently distinguished. ”

“ The average Frenchman that one encounters in public is of so different a type from the average Englishman that you can easily believe that to the end of time the two will not understand each other. The Frenchman has always, comparatively speaking a Bohemian, empirical look; the expression of his face, its colouring, its movement, have not been toned down to the neutral complexion of that breeding for which in English speech we reserve the epithet of "good." ”

“ The Frenchman is grateful, and willing to make himself useful in any way he can: he amuses the children and helps in the work of the house, and does all he can to make return for the hospitality he is receiving. ”

“ That of the Frenchman is more dependent upon external circumstances. He must have confidence in his leader, he must have been encouraged by success, and he must be treated with severity tempered with judicious flattery. ”

“ "Fool that I was to trust a Frenchman! ”

“ But taking the Frenchman who is commonly in view—the usual type of speaking, doing, vocal, visible Frenchman—we may say, and he will probably be not at all displeased at our saying, that the German in him has nearly died out, and the Gallo-Latin has quite got the upper hand. ”

“ “I am a Frenchman. Need I say, messieurs, that I admire beauty? Nay, I adore the fair. Messieurs, we admire all the roses in a garden, but we pluck one. I plucked one, and alas, messieurs, it pricked my finger. ”

“ I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is his theme. ”

“ He rushed past Cornbury and Wynne to the table, his eyes gleaming with excitement. With a fascination which made him oblivious to everything but his one overmastering passion, he tore the cover from the packet and examined the papers in the glare of the candles. In one of them he saw the name D’Añasco. It was enough.
None but a desperate man would have done so foolhardy a thing at such a time. Captain Ferrers was not slow to take advantage of his opportunity. He struggled painfully to his knee, and, drawing his pistol, took a careful aim and fired at the Frenchman. ”

“ The French, to do them justice, attend very minutely to the purity, the correctness, and the elegance of their style in conversation and in their letters. 'Bien narrer' is an object of their study; and though they sometimes carry it to affectation, they never sink into inelegance, which is much the worst extreme of the two. Observe them, and form your French style upon theirs: for elegance in one language will reproduce itself in all. ”

“ For the representation of pieces bearing the general character which we have described, the French are certainly better fitted than any other people,—their native gaiety and sprightliness of disposition,—the polish which their manners so readily acquire,—their irrepressible confidence and self-conceit,—their love of shewing off, and attracting attention, give really a stage effect to many of their serious actions, and to almost all their trifling conversation and amusements. ”

“ There had been a prodigious yield of brains in France. A host of clever men developed the new ideas in every direction. Philosophy and science, literature and language, manners, habits, dress, assumed the forms with which we are so familiar. Then commenced the grand siècle, the era Frenchmen date from. They look upon those gallant ancestors almost as contemporaries, and still admire their feats in war, and laugh over their strokes of wit. The books they wrote became classics, and were in all hands until within the last twenty or thirty years. ”

“ Like summer lightning, French wit flashes frequently, brightly and innocuously, leaving nothing disagreeable to remind one of its having appeared. Conversation is, with the French, the aim and object of society. ”

“ There is no answer to such a statement. Frenchmen believe, quaintly enough, that the hand of every foreigner is always against them. The national conceit in France, an excellent asset, of course, for the nation, but singularly aggravating sometimes, is enormous, unfathomable, and entirely impervious to argument or logic. The greatest praise for anything in France is that [Pg 67] it is French. ”

“ It is wonderful how fond the French are of holding conversation with animals of all descriptions, parrots, dogs, monkeys. Is it that they choose to have all the talk to themselves, to make propositions, and fancy the answers; that they like this discourse by signs, by jabbering, and gesticulation, or that the manifestation of the principle of life without thought delights them above all things? The sociableness of the French seems to expand itself beyond the level of humanity, and to be unconscious of any descent. ”

“ Where will you find, on the face of the globe, a more polished or more civilized nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any rudeness, coarseness or indecorum? You will find none. The French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. ”

“ The air is a cordial to them, and they drink drams of sunshine. My particular liking to the French is, however, confined to their natural and unsophisticated character. The good spirits ‘with which they are clothed and fed,’ and which eke out the deficiencies of fortune or good government, are perhaps too much for them, when joined with external advantages, or artificial pretensions. Their vivacity becomes insolence in office; their success, presumption; their gentility, affectation and grimace. But the national physiognomy (taken at large) is the reflection of good temper and humanity. ”

“ No American, and certainly no Englishman, has ever spoken so well of the French. He never could forget, he said, the nine years’ happiness that he had enjoyed there “in the sweet society of a people whose conversation is instructive, whose manners are highly pleasing, and who, above all the nations of the world, [Pg 347] have, in the greatest perfection, the art of making themselves beloved by strangers.” ”

“ With all their quickness, enthusiasm, and activity, the mass of French people want that admirable quality which I unfeignedly think is the particular characteristic of ourselves:--I mean, common sense. ”

“ Contrary to the prevailing estimate of the French—an estimate formed mainly from sensational novels and plays, or during brief visits to the shops and boulevards of Paris—the French are a stolid, stoical, practical race, abnormally acute, without illusions, and whose famous ebullience is all in the top stratum. There is even a certain melancholy at the root of their temperament, for, gay and pleasure loving as they are on the surface, they are a very ancient and a very wise people. ”

“ No one who is familiar with that delightful portion of French literature contained in their letters and memoirs, which paint the manners and the minds of those they treat of with more truth of graphic effect than any other biography 98 in the world,—no one acquainted with the aspect of society as it is painted there, but must be aware that the character of Frenchmen has undergone a great and important change during the last century. ”