FRENCH SOCIETY.

(From the London Review.)

THE present tone and tendency of French society cannot be regarded with indifference, or without serious alarm, even on this side of the Channel. In these days of rapid communication and constant international intercourse, fashions, both good and bad—fashions in morals as well as those in dress—rapidly pass from one country to another. If Paris be diseased the infection soon spreads to London. Vice rampant and shameless in one capital will not long court obscurity in the other. Now, it cannot have escaped the most careless readers of the newspapers that an evil which has for some time existed in Parisian society has of late become painfully prominent. There is a class of persons which we know does exist, and probably will continue to exist, in all large capitals, but whose existence is, nevertheless, a matter of shame and regret. Our blunt forefathers used to describe it by terms which we dare not now venture to use. The fastidious delicacy of modern times will not endure, to hear a spade called simply a spade. But whether we use the old Anglo-Saxon names, or resort to the more refined appellations which we have imported from abroad, the thing is the same. Its nature is not altered by being called demi-monde or traviata. It is essentially the same in the gilded saloon as in the dirty slum. On any decent theory of morals it is an outrage; from any tolerably sound society it should be an outcast. But in Paris at the present time it is exactly the reverse. This class of women is now one of the most influential in that capital, and in no slight degree leads and moulds the taste of high society, such as it is, under the Second Empire. During the past month the " Jockey Club" gave a ball at one of the principal restaurants in Paris to all the beauty and talent of " Bohemia ;" and every one knows what the female inhabitants of " Bohemia " are like. A few days ago, a writer in one of our contemporaries, which is in an especial manner an authority upon subjects of the kind, favoured us with a glowing account of a fete at a certain Mdlle. C——'s (" the Aspasia of Paris life"). He commenced by telling us that the demimonde ladies now issue invitations for a ball or fete exactly after the fashion of ladies of the court, and that there is nothing to be found in the hotels of the grandes dames which the " half great lady" does not imitate. He described the magnificence of the dresses and of the decorations ; the sumptuousness of the entertainment ; the bold pretensions of these not equivocal ladies to introduce a startling 'innovation into female dress; the manner in which the honours were done "with clever imitative grace and elegance" by the hostess ; and he wound up by assuring us that her saloons were " crowded with princes, dukes, marquises, and counts—in fact, with the same male company as one meets at the parties of the Princess Metternich " and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys." " Some English peers and members of Parliament were present," and it is asserted " seemed to enjoy the dazzlingly improper scene." From another paragraph we learn that, at one of the most fashionable houses in the Faubourg St. Germain, the guests were lately regaled by the performances of a girl who has acquired notoriety as a singer of improper songs at a well-known cafe chantant. We had previously heard with astonishment and disgust that ladies of the highest rank had condescended to fake lessons from a celebrity of the casinos, named Rigolboche ; and we know that for some time past there have been no more fashionable lounges in Paris than the auctions at which the effects of some spendthrift and insolvent member of the demi-monde have put up for sale. Women, of conventionally good reputation, have eagerly seized an opportunity of prying into mysteries which should be revolting to the modesty of their sex ; nor have they disdained to visit the haunts of vice in order to indulge a morbid curiosity, or to gather from the equipment of courtezans some hints in the art of fascination. All this is matter of public notoriety. We have no need to resort to private gossip in order to fill up the outline. Any one at all familiar with the scandal of the French capital will bear us out in the assertion, that further inquiry would not improve the aspect of the case.

We do not at all desire to overstate this matter. We do not think that the French people, as a body, are given up to immorality, have lost all their respect for female virtue. On the contrary, we are quite willing to believe that the middle and working classes are not inferior in this respect to those of any other country. But we fear it cannot be denied that the upper classes are seriously corrupted. Since the days of the lower Empire, women who are not only vicious, but profess vice, have never taken so prominent and so avowed a position in any country. We seem to have drifted back to days—and those not the best days—of classical paganism. Nor can we regard without serious misgivings this ostentatious defiance of decency by those who occupy the most conspicuous positions in the country, and whose influence must ultimately descend through the classes below them. Private immorality is, no doubt, deeply to be deplored ; but it does not threaten the well-being of society to anything like the same extent, or even in the same way, as public immorality. The homage which vice pays to virtue, by hanging its head and hiding itself away in obscure retreats, may he hypocritical, but it has, nevertheless, a real value. So long as this tribute is paid, although the practice of society may be seriously tainted, the principles on which society rests, and by adhering to which its healthiness can alone be preserved, are saved from attack. A basis for improvement is left ; there is something to which those who desire to reform their age can appeal with confidence and without fear of controversy. When, however, vice attains such dimensions, and its followers such power, that concealment is no longer sought—when the ladies of the demi-monde and their followers take their places unmolested by the side of the ladies of the monde—it is pretty certain that new, startling, and destructive theories nearly touching some of the best and holiest relations of life must soon grow up and obtain acceptance. Or, if the old theories are left, they will be deprived of all vitality and efficacy by the absence of any social sanction Few persons in England will deny that the soundness of national life depends ultimately upon the purity of family life. It is in the family and through the family that the virtues of a good citizen are bred and sustained. From it men imbibe more than from anything else a sense of duty, a readiness for self-sacrifice, a disposition to prefer the future and the permanent to the present and the fleeting. In it we contract the habits and become alive to the wants which make us members of society instead of mere items in a mass. We can think of no worse misfortune that could befall a nation than a general relaxation of family ties. With that misfortune, however, France seems to be seriously, although it may be remotely, threatened from the quarter to which we have alluded.

It is idle to expect that the family can exist, in any true sense of the word, where there is not a stern and inexorable standard to female virtue. But how can such a standard—or any approach to such a standard—be maintained in a society where such things are possible as those we have mentioned? The wives and daughters of the princes, dukes, and counts who publicly haunt the salons of Mdlle. C—— are not likely to set much value upon qualities whose absence is found so attractive by their male relations. Nay, as we have already said, they have actually drawn this deduction ; for they have learned to copy the manners of their rivals, and from copying manners to copying morals is a short and easy step. If we could flatter ourselves that the evil would not spread, we should hardly think it worth while to call attention to it. It is not, perhaps, of much importance what becomes of " the upper ten thousand " of Paris. But such an example must affect the classes below them —must stimulate imitation in every great town in France, and even produce some effect upon English society. Indeed, we cannot help seeing that it has done so. " Good society " in London has already got the length of knowing a great many things of which it had better be ignorant. Our newspapers do not publish florid descriptions of Anonoma's fetes ; but even our women do not and cannot well ignore Anonyma as they used to do. It is impossible that they should when our men ride with her in the park, and appear in her box at the opera. There are unmistakable signs of tendency towards the point which the higher classes in Paris seem to have reached. It is therefore high time that the danger should not be ignored, but that those who possess influence should rebuke and discountenance that open coquetry with vice of which we see too much. The English sore is not very deep, and it may easily be prevented from penetrating further. The patient has a good constitution, and there are many circumstances in favour of his recovery. But the case is very different in France. The evil is not a new one there. It has been, first slowly, and then quickly, growing and spreading for the last thirty or forty years at least. It had attained a great height in the reign of Louis Philippe, as all readers of Balzac's novels must he quite aware. Its roots are deeply thrust down into the social soil, upon which they have a wide and tenacious grasp. Although the Empire cannot therefore be charged with creating this evil, it greatly accelerated the monstrous development which we now witness. For it has made men rich without giving them anything except pleasure on which to spend their wealth. Under a despotism the rich are pretty certain to be either profligate or rebellious. Under a despotism, following upon a period of revolution, they are almost equally certain to be the former rather than the latter. So long as France is deprived of freedom, we see no reason to anticipate any improvement in the morality of the higher and moneyed classes. On the other hand, so long as the higher and moneyed classes are what they are, it is not likely that they will make any effort to obtain a rational and moderate liberty. They will be satisfied if they are only protected and let alone. But if they do not grow better, they are sure to grow worse ; and they are sure to infect those below them. Middle-aged artisans—husbands and fathers of families—may now pelt the lorettes, as they did one day on the racecourse. The generation which is growing up will not have so savage a virtue. They may hate the wealthy, who have pleasures which they cannot obtain, but they will envy and imitate them nevertheless.

s.m.h. 17 July 1865,