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Updated: May 26, 2025
A well-approved description of a grisette should commence with her foot. The grisette is the Andalouse of Paris; she possesses the talent of being able to pass through the mire of Lutetia on tiptoe, like a dancer who studies her steps, without soiling her white stockings with a single speck of mud.
These rooms were occupied by a rich 'agent de change; but, like all such ancient palaces, the upper stories were wretchedly defective even in the comforts which poor men demand nowadays: a back staircase, narrow, dirty, never lighted, dark as Erebus, led to the room occupied by the Marquis, which might be naturally occupied by a needy student or a virtuous 'grisette. But there was to him a charm in that old hotel, and the richest 'locataire' therein was not treated with a respect so ceremonious as that which at tended the lodger on the fourth story.
Such was Jeanne Bécu in the first bloom of her dainty beauty, the prettiest grisette who ever set hearts fluttering in Paris streets; with laughter dancing in her eyes, a charming pertness at her red lips, grace in every movement, and the springtide of youth racing through her veins. When Voltaire first saw her portrait, he exclaimed, "The original was fashioned for the gods."
But some day you'll repent of the way you are behaving; for I tell you now that nothing on earth, neither gold nor silver, will induce me to return the good thing that belongs to you, if you refuse to accept it to-day." "But, Suzanne, are you sure?" "Oh, monsieur!" cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her, "what do you take me for?
The grisette, seeing herself so little understood, suppressed a sigh, waiting hoping for a better occasion to unfold to Germain the wishes of her heart. She answered, then, with embarrassment: "I can easily comprehend that the society of these bad people causes you horror, but that is no reason for you to brave useless dangers."
The person of the pretended merchant's clerk was quite to her taste: his face, benevolent, proud, and noble, pleased her greatly: and then he had shown so much compassion toward the poor Morels, in giving up his room to them, that, thanks to his kindness of heart, and perhaps also to his good looks, Rudolph had made great steps in the confidence of the grisette, who, according to her ideas of the necessity of reciprocal obligations imposed on neighbors, esteemed herself fortunate that Rudolph had succeeded the commission-traveler, Cabrion, and Francois Germain; for she had begun to feel that the next room had been too long empty, and she feared, above all, that it would not be agreeably occupied.
Am I not your little friend, your neighbor? Why do you conceal anything? Be frank, then, with me; tell me all," added the grisette, timidly; for she only waited for an avowal from Germain to tell him openly that she loved him. An honest and generous love, which the misfortunes of Germain had called into existence.
I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both lolled upon the counter it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay between us. The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways to the window, then at the gloves, and then at me.
She would wipe away your kisses, my dear friend, as indifferently as she would perform her ablutions. She would sponge love from her cheeks as she washes off rouge. We know women of that sort the thorough-bred Parisienne. Have you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? Her face is as good as a picture.
It is to these results, their causes, and their immediate and probable effects, his mind's eye will be irresistibly drawn, not to spitting-boxes, tobacco, two-pronged forks, or other conventional bagatelles, the particulars of each of which, as a solecism in polite manners, can be corrected and canvassed by any waiter from the London Tavern, Ludgate Street, and by every grisette from America Square to Brompton Terrace, who may choose to display their acquired gentility "for the nonce;" and it is the absence of a spirit of philosophy generally in our writers, and this affectation of prating so like waiting-gentlewomen, that stings Americans, and with some show of reason, when they see the great labours of their young country with the efforts of its people passed lightly by, and trifles caught up and commented upon, whose importance they cannot comprehend, and which they have neither leisure nor example to alter or attend to.
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