VIII
A DESCRIPTION OF THE MODE
I am once more in Paris. A thousand painful recollections obtrude themselves on my mind, and I am almost afraid to inquire after my former acquaintances. I know not where I shall address myself for information, or where I shall first set my foot. When I reflect upon the strange vicissitudes of fortune I have experienced; when I recall the whirlpool of danger I have passed, and the proscription which, with some mean and pusillanimous minds, is still considered to hang over me, I am doubtful whether I am prudent to venture again into the source of all my injuries. The motive that brought me from England, the desire of ascertaining the fate of a relative, so dearly beloved and so long lost, gives strength to my resolution and dissipates my personal anxieties. But I am both low and dejected in mind and spirits.
I will attempt to give a faithful account of this capital, which may be considered as the manufactory whence all the horrors and changes of the Revolution have originated. France as a country should not be judged by the dissolute principles of the inhabitants of her metropolis. In the provinces remote from the centre of government as much character and simplicity exist as in the best regulated empires.
The Revolution may in some degree have changed the innocence of the peasantry, and corrupted the primitive integrity of their character. The cause of this may be traced to the artifices of demagogues and atheists. In the mountains of the Vosges, in La Vendée and in the South-Western parts of the Republic, the people of both town and country possess an originality of character founded on sentiments of generosity and virtue. But in many Departments of the Republic, particularly the Department of the Seine, every principle of Society is inverted, and Society itself is loathsome, abhorrent, corrupt, poisoned and poisonous.
My first duty was to visit those old friends who had survived the general wreck of moral order. From them I hoped to learn the history of those who had perished. With an anxious mind I hastened after dinner to the Rue Jacob, in the Faubourg S. Germain, to see if my old friend M. Suédaeur was alive. I inquired if the doctor resided there; the answer was affirmative, but he was not at home. I proceeded to the Rue Niçoise and found M. de la Metherie in perfect health and better spirits than on that gloomy night in 1793 when we last parted. From him I learnt the fatal end of many of my acquaintance, but he mentioned several who were not only in existence but prosperous, and gave me considerable encouragement in what was the main object of my journey to Paris.
I returned home to find a citizen hairdresser playing the devil with my wife’s locks. He had so clipped and twisted them as to give her the air of a person just issued from the bath. Upon my seriously remonstrating against this wild appearance, he very coolly informed me that it was La Mode, and unless my pate was better organised it would be impossible for me to go into good company. I immediately submitted to an operation. My tail was instantly amputated and the hair of my unfortunate head frizzled into such a multitude of compound forms as to give me precisely the appearance of one of the ourang outangs which is to be seen over Exeter Change. Having undergone this ceremony, I supposed I was now in the Mode. But no! He pulled from his pocket two horrible whiskers, which were to extend from my cheek bones and meet at the bottom of my chin, and another piece of hair which was to be hid under my neckcloth and fly up so as to cover my chin.
“What is all this apparatus for?”
“To complete you in the Parisian mode.”
“I will not submit to be made into a baboon.”
“But, sir, you must! It is La Mode!”
“I tell you I will not obey La Mode!”
“Donc, monsieur, vous êtes perdu!”
“If you trouble me with another word on this subject I shall be under the indispensable necessity of knocking you down.”
Thus by an act of matchless fortitude I rescued myself from the hands of this prattler, but not till he had extracted from me eighteen shillings for having made my companion look wild, myself like a monkey, and annoyed me with perfumes and gallipots.
Before we were allowed to retire to rest a tailor, a hatter and a glover made their appearance. All honest tradesmen in Paris are really to be pitied, a long and sanguinary war has ruined their commerce, and these poor hungry wretches are as voracious as sharks. It is impossible to complain of them. To all these civil gentlemen I returned a plain answer, saying I had brought from England every article necessary for use during my residence in France. On which they retired with great politeness, and left me for the first time in nine years to take repose in the capital of a nation whose former rulers thirsted to shed our blood.