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We perceive, therefore, that, according to M. de Talleyrand, the proper manner of receiving a certain circle of habitués was likely to be the study of a whole life. We select from Mme. Ancelot's book sketches of the following maitresses de maison, because they seem to us the types of the periods of transformation to which they correspond in the order of date: Mme. Lebrun, Mme.
It is even more than that; for those who wish to have a correct notion of certain epochs of the social civilization of modern France, and of certain predominant types in French society during the last forty years, Madame Ancelot's little volume is full of instruction.
Mme. Ancelot confesses to having "studied narrowly" all Mme. Récamier's manoeuvres, and to having watched all the thousand little traps she laid for social "lions"; but we are rather astonished herein at Mme. Ancelot's astonishment, for, with more or less talent and grace, these are the devices resorted to in Paris by a whole class of maitresses de maison, of whom Mme.
The way in which Mme. Ancelot introduces her "friend," the poor Duchesse d'Abrantès, on the scene, is exceedingly amusing and natural; and we have here at once the opportunity of applying the remark we made in commencing these pages, upon Mme. Ancelot's truthfulness.
But what brought all the light-heartedness, all the enthusiasm, all the exultation to its utmost height was, that, in all that youth, so trusting and so hopeful, no one gave a single thought to money!" Assuredly, it would be impossible to say as much nowadays. Taken as a whole, Mme. Ancelot's little volume is, as we said, an amusing and an instructive one.
Therefore might a profound and comprehensive study of the drawing-rooms of Paris be in a manner a history of France in our own times. Madame Ancelot's little volume does not aim so high; nor, had it done so, would its author have possessed the talent requisite for carrying out such a design. Having waited in every instance till the people she has to speak of were dead, Mme.
However, to be just, we must, in extenuation of all these absurdities, cite one passage more from Mme. Ancelot's book, in which, in one respect, at all events, the youth of twenty years ago in Paris are shown to have been superior to the youth of the present day.
Ancelot's book is of much service; for a certain number of the different salons she names are, as it were, types of the different stages civilization has attained to in the city which chooses to style itself "the brain of Europe." The description, given in the little book before us, of what in Paris constitutes a genuine salon, is a tolerably correct one. "A salon," says Mme.
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