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Or, again, if my Waverley had been entitled 'A Tale of the Times, wouldst thou not, gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-Hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow-Street Office?
She had no notion of being made sport of for the elegantes, and, with all Lady Masham's plausibility of persiflage, she never obtained her end, and never elicited anything really absurd by all attempts to draw her out out she would not be drawn.
After living all one's life in provincial parishes where every inhabitant recognised and saluted the vicar's daughter, it was a little bewildering to find oneself surrounded by hundreds of absolutely strange faces; a trifle depressing too, to one-and-twenty, to realise afresh her own countrified appearance, as slim-waisted elegantes floated past in a succession of spring toilettes, each one more fascinating than the last.
Listen to this: "Lady Geoghegan was gowned in an important creation of saffron tweed, the product of the convent looms. We are much mistaken if this fabric in just this shade is not destined to play a part in robing the élégantes who will shed a lustre on our house-parties during the autumn." And this you must just listen to this. 'I won't, said Hyacinth; 'you can if you like, Marion.
Europe agonised and they dined and danced, displayed themselves at the opera, summarised the war as dreadful, dismissed it, gossiped and laughed. It was that attitude which distressed this girl who, had she been capable of wishing ill to any one, might have wished them treated as were the élegantes of Brussels. Margaret had no such evil wish.
I allude chiefly to those who were on foot. The rich silks and brocades which trail along the Prado, hiding pertinaciously the exquisitely small feet of the wearers, would be confined in Paris to the élégantes who promenade the Bois de Boulogne or the Champs-Elysées in carriages.
These imputations and grievances of the Jacobins are not altogether without foundation. People in general are strongly impressed with an idea that the Assembly are veering towards royalism; and it is equally true, that the speeches of Tallien and Freron are occasionally heard and applauded by fair elegantes, who, two years ago, would have recoiled at the name of either.
Those anti-revolutionary elegantes resorted to other promenades; but, since the accession of the consular government, the wearing of this doubtful emblem of patriotism has been dispensed with, and the garden of the Tuileries is said to be now as much frequented in the fine season as at any period of the old regime.
I shall, perhaps, be pardoned for introducing a little impromptu compliment, which the pure, and unassuming merits of the youngest of the family, drew from my pen, in consequence of the conversation one evening, turning upon the indecorum of the tunic dress, amongst the elegantes of Paris.
Or, again, if my Waverley had been entitled 'A Tale of the Times, wouldst thou not, gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-Hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow-Street Office?
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