THE HUMORIST.

FASHIONABLE FICTIONS.

Ir seems that the French have, like the English, been latterly somewhat overrun with what are called fashionable novels, and which, if we may judge from what we see in the reviews of them, are nearly equal in merit and accuracy to those which have of late years deluged the circulating libraries of London.

M. Eugene Guinot has just shown them up in a very agreeable manner. "It is very strange," says he, " that Fashion has not yet found a historian, in a country in which she so pre-eminently flourishes, and where literature is so active and general. A History of Fashion would be at once curious and entertaining, and certain success would await a judicious and experienced writer who would carefully collect its stories, exhibit its manners, explain its influence over society, and collect all the delightful anecdotes with which the annals of the fashionable world are filled. Materials for this yet unaccomplished work may be found scattered over the pages of books of every age, but it would require great caution and prudence to consult the numerous existing documents, for upon this particular subject writers of every age seem to have evinced the grossest partiality. In all times, whether the writers be grave or gay, their universal object appears to have been to calumniate good society, and especially those of fashion."

Let us look at the literature of the sixteenth century, the events of which have afforded so many subjects for modern plays and romances. The dandies of that period called themselves Raffines, and are described to us as savages, brawlers, and duellists, going abroad sword in hand. In their day, fashion every morning bedewed the turf of the Pré aux Clercs, supreme bon ton exhibited itself in a stab from a dagger, and Fashion wrote her laws with the point of a rapier.

This rude kind of elegance held sway even under the reign of Louis the Thirteenth. The next reign produced a new race of dandies, whom Molière and his contemporaries represent as weak and wicked; immoral coxcombs, habituated to all sorts of crime, and trampling under foot every just and proper feeling. Later than this, in the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, came in the Roues, who, if literature be to be believed, exceeded their predecessors in all kinds of misconduct. At last, under the Consulate, sprang up the Incroyables, a race of dandies whom plays and novels innumerable have covered with ridicule.

The dandies of the present day are not much better treated, and future ages will form a very curious idea of our men of fashion if they implicitly rely upon our coeval authorities, literary and graphic. Open, for instance, a Journal des Modes:" the print exhibits to your astonished eye the dandy, enveloped in a richly-embroidered dressing-gown, lounging listlessly on a sofa, simpering and smirking, with his head lolling on one side, like a boarding-school Miss. Near him stands a groom, in top-boots, who has the care of his toilet. The compiler of

these "Journaux "know nothing of any servant but the groom. The valet-de-chambre, in their opinion, is obsolete: the groom they see, and therefore are satisfied that he still exists; and therefore he is served up with all sauces, and upon all occasions.

Next to these journalists come the novelists, who appear to derive their notions of men of fashion from their graphic contemporaries. There are in France, just now, between two and three hundred novel-writers, full of wit and talent, but all perfect strangers to the world which they propose to describe, and of the ways of which they have not the remotest idea. These young authors, who have never trod carpet, as M. de Talleyrand said, at a period when carpets were yet considered luxuries, delight in the most brilliant descriptions, formed in their own lively imaginations, regulated only by what they have read of other times, and thus create a world of their own, for their own special use and service. They introduce their readers into visionary saloons and unearthly banquettingrooms, and then fill them with the most extraordinary race of men and women of their own manufacture, whom they call people of fashion. Their men are wonderfully compounded of the Raffine, the Roué, and the Incroyable, all jumbled together, and splendidly enriched with some new traits of their own. A dandy thus constructed is always favoured with a romantic name. He is called, perhaps, Julio de Mirandal, Palamede de Flamicour, or Clodimir de St. Amaranthe; and is then made to perform a part in the Beau monde, from the record of which posterity is to judge of the state of society in the present day.

By way of a specimen of this style of writing, take this :-We enter one of the most elegant houses of the Chaussée d'Antin: we reach the bedchamber where slumbers the dandy Julio. The room is hung with blue Cachemire, woven with green palm-leaves; the floor covered with a rich, soft, white carpet, strewed with roses and lilies, so naturally worked, that they seem like real flowers scattered by the hand of Spring; the armed-chairs are of lilac velvet embroidered with gold; an alabaster lamp hangs from the ceiling; and the walls are adorned with pictures of beautiful women by Dubuffe, and of beautiful horses by Lepaulle. On either side of the glass over the fire-place hang twenty miniatures of lovely creatures, smiling in their frames. The chimney-piece is covered with cups, vases, and candlesticks, and a clock of shell-work (which had belonged to Madame Dubary), representing Love binding the scythe of Time with garlands of flowers, occupies the centre. The bed itself is surmounted with a massive crown, whence fall, in full folds, its curtains of mohair. On a pillow, richly hemmed with lace, is deposited a beautiful head belonging to a young man, whose long yet uncurled black hair is loosely flowing over its resting-place; that head-that hair-are Julio's. It is the pale and interesting Julio who wakes: he opens his fascinating eyes. At that moment the clock on the chimneypiece strikes twelve, and Julio rings his bell.

A groom answers the summons, and having entered the room, respectfully waits his master's orders.

"Abufar," said Julio, "open the windows."

Abufar hastens to obey his master's orders.

"Abufar, let me dress," says Julio; "give me my violet-coloured velvet morning-gown, my green satin pantaloons, and my slippers."

"Which, Sir?" asks Abufar.

Those which the little Duchess embroidered for me," replies

Julio. "Now give me one of my Greek caps-not the one the Baroness made me the one I had from Lady Arabella. Now-stop—I declare I cannot at the moment recollect what I want next. I was racketting about last night-dissipating dreadfully; and this morning I am quite unable to collect my scattered ideas."

The dandy, having sufficiently draped himself, throws himself into a large, soft, armed-chair à la Voltaire; and, fatigued by his exertions, and the pleasures of the preceding evening, falls into a sort of careless reverie. Abufar ventures to break silence.

"Am I to get the pistols, Sir?-do you fight to-day?"

"Fight!" replies Julio; "no, not this morning, I think. I am not quite sure. Give me my pocket-book. Let me see-Friday,-this is Friday, is it not?—Yes, Friday. No. To send to my lawyer-ah !— at four, Fanny. No; there is nothing about a duel to-day. Your master, Abufar, has become as pacific as a priest. I must see about this: only two duels this month; and here we are at the 19th. How exceedingly odd! If I don't take care I shall get positively rusty. I must have an affair to-day: I must, indeed. I'll put it down in my memoranda, for fear I should forget it."

Thus was the sword of Julio destined to slumber in its scabbard one day longer, and his pistols to lie untouched in their ebony case, which was beautifully inlaid with death's-heads and cross-bones in ivory.-Julio suddenly abandons his pugnacious reflections, and inquires for his courier. Abufar brings him in a bundle of letters and the newspapers. Julio begins with these, and glances his eyes hastily over them: he then begins to open the letters. Twelve little sweet-scented notes lie before him he first counts them, and carefully examines the superscriptions before he opens any one of them.

Behold him unfolding the love-fraught correspondence. Abufar had already placed near his master an ebony trunk, lined with rose-coloured satin. Every note, after having been read, was thrown into this receptacle, as the poor, after having lived, are cast into a common grave. Julio's reading was interrupted sometimes by smiles of satisfactionsometimes by a frown;-sometimes by a loud laugh-and occasionally by short observations, such as "Psha!"- "Indeed!"—" Already!". "What madness!"-" Under the elms!"-" Umph!"-"That's love!" “No;”—“ A shawl;"-" Something new;"-" Too green!"—" Absolute tyranny!" All at once, after having read the last of the epistles, Julio exclaims-"Capital! excellent! I wanted an affair, just to keep my hand in. The Baroness bores me-persecutes me. I have it! will put her note in an envelope, and send it to her husband: he is a brave man and a kind friend of mine. Nothing can answer the purpose better." And Julio proceeded to put his design into execution, with that ferocious coolness which invariably characterizes the perfidy of men of fashion.

"Who are in the antechamber?" asks the dandy.

"Your two fencing-masters, Sir," replied Abufar.

"I shan't fence to-day."

I

"Your curiosity collector is here, and your Rubens merchant," said Abufar.

"Let them in," said Julio. "Are those all?"

No, Sir," replied Abufar; "there is your waistcoat tailor, with some patterns to select; your pantaloon tailor; your tailor for gloves,

and your tailor for linen, who is waiting to measure you for some shirts."

To all these essential subordinates Julio gives audience, and then orders his breakfast. A tray covered with the most exquisite viands and choicest wines is put down. Julio just tastes the wing of a partridge aux truffes-moistens his lips with a few drops of Cyprus wine, to which, whether because he has no appetite, or because, like Byron, he dreads the calamity of growing fat, he confines his repast, and concludes his extremely moderate meal by throwing his napkin at Abufar's head.

"Take away all this," said Julio, "I want to smoke; send Mahomet here."

Mahomet was groom of the pipes; Julio ordinarily called him his slave. Since smoking has become so universally fashionable, the dandies have discovered a new subject for luxury. We have only yet spoken of Julio's bed-chamber. His apartments consisted of eight other rooms; an antechamber furnished with red velvet benches fringed with gold-a saloon fitted up in the style of the seventeenth century-an Italian dining-room of white marble and gold-a boudoir after Watteau-a bath-room, painted in fresco-a Gothic hall of the time of Charles the Seventh-an armoury wainscotted with oak, and ornamented with pikes, lances, cuirasses, bucklers, swords, daggers, guns, pistols, and all the implements of war-and next to this the divan, a Turkish saloon, deriving its name from the vast oriental sofa which surrounds it. On the walls of the divan, pipes of all sorts, and of all nations, were ranged in equal splendour and regularity with the swords and trophies in the armoury-all nations and all people were represented in this vast arsenal of smokery. It contained specimens of every pipe in the world, from the calumet of the savage to the philosophical pipe of the German student, from the Persian narghila down to the little earthen doodeen so energetically nicknamed the Brulegueule by the French corporals. In this divan there were neither chairs, nor tables, nor furniture of any kind or description-nothing but piles of cushions which lay scattered about, and a china japanned closet filled with boxes of cigars.

Mahomet, who was custos of this chamber, was a mulatto dressed with the mingled fashions of the eastern and western worlds. He wore an Egyptian cap, a blue polonaise, cossack trousers, and yellow morocco Turkish boots.

"What will you smoke, Sir ?" said the slave to his master. "We have received several new pipes from Cephalonia. The secretary to the Embassy has sent you some small cigars from Madrid, four cases of Cubas' have arrived from Havre, and I have sent for some 'Brazils.' The dandy decided in favour of a Havannah cigar, and after having dismissed Mahomet, proceeded to his stables. They were splendid-infinitely more like drawing-rooms than places for horses. Those deputies who declaim from the tribune against the vast expense which has been incurred in building a palace for the monkeys in the Jardin des Plantes would perhaps be less indignant at the luxuries enjoyed by those interesting animals, if they were but to see how Julio's horses were lodged and accommodated.

Julio's stables were furnished just like drawing-rooms: there were

damask curtains to the windows-the walls were lined with mahogany, on which hung the best engravings of Charles Vernet. From a raised space, inclosed by a gilt railing, the dandy saw his horses pass in review before him ;-here it was he entered into the most familiar technical conversations with his own stable-boys, and displayed to their admiring minds the extent of his knowledge in all matters relating to horse-flesh. Having cast his eye over some new acquisition to his stud, and caressed his favourite saddle-horse, he retired, saying

"Tom Pick, I shall ride the sorrel-horse to-day-you will ride the dapple-grey-Time must be killed-I shall go to the wood. Abufar, come, dress me.”

The dandy's toilet occupied an hour and a half-six painful quarters of hours to poor Abufar, who during the whole period remained exposed to a continued shower of reproaches and maledictions. Julio is never satisfied with his dress-his hair is parted too much to the right on his forehead-his stays are laced crookedly-his boots do not shine-his neckcloth is not tight enough-he changes his waistcoat fourteen or fifteen times before he can decide which to wear-then his groom is so slow. At last, having consulted all the glasses in the room, he calls for his hat, his gloves, and a perfumed handkerchief-fills his pockets with pieces of gold, which, by a happy association of ideas, recals to his mind a circumstance which otherwise might have entirely slipped his memory. "Abufar," cries Julio, "how fortunate it is that I have recollected my misfortune of last night! Abufar, take three hundred louis to M. Tancred de Ravenelles. I recollect now I lost them to him last night at whist. I never saw a fellow persecuted with bad luck as I was."

Julio mounted on his sorrel takes the road to the Bois de Boulognehe proceeds by the Avenue de Neuilly, "inspecting" the extraordinary persons who happen to pass him in carriages. In the wood he meets his friends the elite of the Parisian youth. They cluster together— they talk-they smoke-they discuss the last race; it is, in fact, a sort of equestrian congress. At last a wager is proposed. One dandy lays that he will leap his horse in his tilbury over a five-barred gate. Considerable sums are betted on either side. Julio bets three thousand francs in favour of the leap. The horse is put to the gate, and, by dint of flogging, tries the jump, dashes himself against the top rail, breaks one of his legs, and knocks the tilbury to pieces. Julio has lost-bad luck now, better another time.

The dandies return to Paris after their ride, and dine at a café. Their banquet is worthy of Lucullus. The bill for five, amounts to four hundred francs, which is about the average of the day's expenses of these gentlemen. Julio returns home to dress for the opera, to which he goes in order to exhibit to the world the beauties of his gold-headed cane, so richly set with rubies and emeralds. After the opera the dandies meet again at the club. Some sit down to play, while others engage in affairs which, if more venial, are not much less perilous.

Such, reader, is the life of a French dandy, as described by the novelists of the present day. What the events resulting from such a course of existence must naturally be, it is not difficult to imagine. Indeed, all the heroes of modern novels reach the dénouement of their works by the same road. If the reader wish to hear what happened to Julio, he shall have the history, which is extremely short and simple.

The day following that which we have described, Abufar comes to