New Year’s Day in Paris in 1858

Excerpts from: ASPECTS OF PARIS. BY EDWARD COPPING. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, & ROBERTS. 1858.

CHAP. II. PARIS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY. IF you would see Paris under its gayest aspect, you must see it on the Jour de l'An, or New Year's Day. The Jour de l'An is the most popular of all French holidays; it is the Christmas Day of France. Paris is lively enough on other festivals, but on this she becomes thoroughly gay. Work almost entirely ceases. The ouvrier puts aside his implements; the ouvrière lays down her needle; the clerk flings away his pen; the merchant closes his ledger; the journalist shuts up his bureau; the judge doffs his gown. The unhappy shopman alone has no respite from labour. Rarely, indeed, does he work so hard as on the Jour de l’An. No wonder! All Paris goes out shopping to-day, and he has all Paris to serve. By noon the great movement has fairly begun. Promenading purchasers fill every street; the arcades overflow; the Boulevards are entirely submerged. From the Madeleine to the Château d'Eau, and from the Château d'Eau to the Madeleine, four goodly miles, I trow, the pavements on both sides are occupied by a slowly moving mass of human forms. It is impossible, be assured, to move quickly. Your pace must necessarily be that of the tortoise. Never mind! The hare is fast asleep to-day. You need not fear that he will outstrip you. If the pavement were not doubly encumbered, you would find it impossible to accelerate your speed. Though you should have no more taste than a Hottentot, no more poetry than a paviour, you must stop to gaze at the glittering objects displayed in every shop window. And yet to loiter here is perilous. Your gold pieces are in danger. If you would return with an unlightened purse and an untroubled conscience, retire at once. There is a conspiracy to-day among the Paris shopkeepers to rifle and strip you. Refuse to listen to the voice of prudence, and they will leave you as coinless as was poor Jean-Jacques when he arrived in Turin under the conduct of the worthy Sabrans. If, however, you are determined after this warning to brave the dangers of the Boulevards, your expenditure be upon your own balance sheet! Follow me. Did you ever before see such a display of charming objects, so calculated to decoy artless woman and seduce unsuspecting man? Every tradesman seems to have opened a fancy fair. See! the linen draper puts forth his most ethereal gauzes, his most glossy satins, his most tender velvets. The tobacconist displays the most gorgeous hookahs, the most magnificent meerschaums, the most fanciful pouches, the richest and rarest snuff-boxes. The bookseller is all a-blaze with brilliant bindings. Nothing but resplendent gift books, gilt edged, gilt lettered, and gilt covered, are to be seen on his counters. Even Corneille and Racine would be excluded from this company of well-dressed tomes if they made their appearance in paper dishabille. Then the china-merchant arranges in the most enticing order his choicest porcelain vases, his most glittering cut glass, his most alluring cups and seductive saucers. A man might contentedly leave off tea-drinking forever, if he could but for once sip his souchong out of this ravishing crockery. And then the stationer, where has he obtained all those ink-stands, which of themselves might tempt any man to rush into print; and those piles of fancy note paper, as delicately tinted as a maiden's cheek; and those writing-cases, which seem almost too delicate for even the hand of Beauty to rest upon? Where, indeed! The toy-man might tell us, perhaps, for evidently he has credit at the same establishment. Yet, no! His merry-eyed, rosy- cheeked dolls, were never made by mortal hands. They must have been born of other dolls, some good old lady from fairyland assisting them into life. It is all clear enough now. Every Paris tradesman has fallen madly in love to-day in love with extravagant display. Why even the apothecary adorns his windows with the most attractive patent medicines and the most pleasing surgical instruments. If there were an undertaker here about, depend upon it he would share the general infatuation. He would treat us to rows and rows of charming little baby- coffins of polished oak, intermingled with the choicest specimens of leaden ware for adults. But the most brilliant displays we have yet to see. Yes! hitherto we have been merely dazzled; now we are to be fairly blinded. A man may look at linen drapers, stationers, china merchants, book-sellers, tobacconists, and pass on unscathed, perhaps; but not thus will he pass the shop where knick knack nothings are sold or that where sweetmeats make mute appeals to the greedy stomach of youth. Knick knack nothings! Imagine the indignation of a polished Paris tradesman upon hearing his objets d’art thus contemptuously designated. I retract the expression. We should have a better name for all these beautiful trifles in which art strives to unite itself to utility these taper stands, toilette boxes, jewel boxes, wafer boxes, scent bottles, clock cases, pin receptacles, &c. Granted, that art is sometimes here put to mean employ, as Minerva would be if she were to go out charring. Yet see how it refines and softens everything it touches! Look at that stand for taper and lucifer matches in the centre a little boy and girl are reading a book; they evidently read by the light of the taper; should it go out are not the matches all ready on the other side to rekindle it? Fortunate age! In our forefathers' days art remained shut up in the picture gallery or the sculpture museum a proud beauty who scorned the vulgar gaze. Now she condescendingly puts on a homely mien and comes forth into our humblest dwellings, bringing brightness into their most obscure corners. But at last we have arrived at the most splendid stall in the fair. We are at the sweetmeat shop of which I spoke. This a sweetmeat shop! Why it's the last scene of a pantomime without the coloured fires! a Bower of Beauty, Hall of Radiant Light or Palace of Dazzling Splendour. Where is the good spirit who ought to be somewhere near about waiting to come in on her magic car? The good spirit, my gentle and simple sir, is behind the counter, quite ready to serve you, if you wish to buy anything, but in no mood to listen to your theatrical rhapsodies. Buy! who talks of buying here? This is an art exhibition not a lollypop shop. Those bonbons are too exquisite to be eaten. I should as soon think of eating the Venus de Milo or the Diane Chasseresse. Eyes, not stomachs, surely, are to be feasted with these beautiful coings, these charming abricots, these graceful cerises; these delicate mandarines, mirabelles, Reines Claudes, brochettes, marrons glacés, angéliques, pastèques, and calissons d'Aix! Why! look at the boxes and baskets in which they are contained. They would grace the boudoir of a fairy. A fairy! If Titania were to come here shopping, Oberon would be forced to disclaim all responsibility for her debts in order to save himself from the Bankruptcy Court or Clichy. Come away, man, come away, while yet another six-pence is left in your pocket. Shops, more shops! Yes, the very pavements axe covered with them. All along the main Boulevards and in many of the chief thoroughfares you will see line after line of temporary shops stretching away. They are mere stalls unsightly edifices of rough deal, hastily knocked together, but they add amazingly to the bustle of the streets. Their proprietors are mostly small tradesmen or hucksters, who are allowed by the municipal authorities, in accordance with time-honoured custom, to establish themselves in this manner upon the public pavement for about a week before, and a week after, the Jour de l’An. Purchasers whose purses will not enable them to visit in safety the shops we have just been looking at come, without fear, to these temporary establishments, for the objects they sell are of inferior quality and of low price. In these stalls there is a strange succession of the useful and the ornamental. In one you will see, perhaps, devotional images; in the next, fleecy hosiery. Side by side with illustrated gift books, you will find cheap fire-irons; immediately after porcelain vases come brushes and brooms. You may buy almost anything, indeed, in these wooden marts. The dealers are prepared to supply every want. Toys, trinkets, sham jewellery, drapery goods, stationery, fruit, bonbons, pictures, cakes, pocket-handkerchiefs, crockery, cutlery, bronzes, cravats, thermometers, purses, walking-sticks, stereoscopes, papier-maché tea-trays, hat-pegs, book-cases, chairs, hair-brushes, telescopes, pots and pans, almanacs, pipes, basket-work, artificial flowers, plaster casts, furs, stags' horns, measurement rules, Berlin wool patterns; all may be had in these street storehouses. How much per cent, under prime cost none but an advertiser would be bold enough to state. But why all this unusual display, you ask, after passing miles of stall and shop, miles of shop and stall? To answer is not difficult. The Jour de l’An is a day on which everybody in France makes presents. As poor as a pauper, or as stingy as charity must be the man who does not open his purse strings on this joyous first of January. Be his circle of acquaintance ever so small, he cannot pass round it without the aid of his generosity. Presents are made to everybody to-day. Presents to mothers, to fathers, to sisters, to brothers, to wives, to daughters, to sons, to cousins, to uncles, to aunts, to nieces, to sweethearts, to mere friends and acquaintances. Ladies and children come in, of course, for the lion's share. If you are on intimate terms with a family, not only the younger members of that family, but their mammas also, expect new year's gifts, or étrennes as they are called. The cost you will be put to, for these presents, is no trifle. A young man of but moderate means, and with but a moderate number of friends, rarely spends less than a hundred francs four pounds sterling upon his étrennes. People whose means are more ample, will disburse ten times that sum. The amount spent every year in Paris on the Jour de l’An for toys alone, is estimated at one hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling! The étrennes of the superior shops are, as a rule, of the most expensive kind. A box of sweetmeats seems a very simple affair, and so it is when the box is mere deal, and the sweetmeats homely caraway comfits. But this simplicity would not suit Parisian taste. The bonbons of the Jour de l'An are of the most luscious kind; the boxes, elaborately worked and adorned, are of papier-maché, mother of pearl, or carved wood. I have seen them as high as twelve hundred francs -- forty-eight pounds sterling and there are some even dearer. Very pretty presents these, as it seems to me, for New Year's Day. People generally give away these étrennes, or humbler ones of a similar kind, with a cheerful spirit and a smiling face. This is only natural. Friends whom we esteem, and relatives whom we love, have the key of our hearts; and that key, as is well known, unlocks our money-chest. But there are other people who in no way enter into our sympathies, to whom we are as it were compelled to give, and to them we extend our generosity with miserly reluctance.

I have said that the Jour de l'An is the Christmas Day of France. It is the day after as well. A host of persons, who have no more right to ask alms of you than they have to stop you on the highway, assail you now with demands for unearnt money. The weak-voiced, feeble-smiling Auvergnat, who brings you water every morning in pails, after the manner of the middle ages, (such extraordinary inventions as Water Companies and New Rivers not yet having penetrated into the most civilised capital in the world,) is perhaps at the head of this black band. Then comes the charbonnier, who supplies you with wood and coal; the man who brings you your paper in the morning; the servant whom you regularly pay every month for serving you; the blanchisseuse who washes your linen; the concierge who peeps into your letters, and otherwise renders you important aid; the butcher boy who brings you meat; the baker boy who brings you bread; the grocer's boy who brings you grocery. Your entire morning is spent in responding to the pitiful demands of these people. If only sixty or seventy francs also are spent, you may think yourself lucky. In no place are you safe from the banditti of the Jour de l’An. Exhausted, perhaps, by the voluntary acts of generosity which have been wrung from you during the morning, you take refuge in your restaurant, and order a déjeúner. The garҫon smiles upon you as you enter, he smiles upon you as you sit down, he smiles upon you when you have finished your meal. Nay, so amiable has he become, that he brings you, unasked, an orange, which he, still smiling, trusts you will accept. That orange costs you a five franc piece. Your digestion being thus disarranged, you make the best of your way to the café, and take a petit verre, or a little black coffee, exactly of course as you would take a blue pill or a dose of quinine. But here too you meet with a smiling garҫon, who obligingly offers you a cigar tied up with a piece of red ribbon. Your hand is again in your pocket. For cigars cost as much as oranges to-day. As a last resource you fly to your reading-room, hoping to wrap yourself up in a journal, and thus remain concealed. But the surly attendant, who for a whole year has made you wait until six o'clock for the evening papers, and who has always told you that the "Débats" is engaged three deep, at once spies you out, and with a smile even upon his face wishes you all sorts of compliments upon this most auspicious day. You get rid of him with a heavy groan and a gratuity by no means light, and wander forth into the streets, striving to forget your indignation by mingling with the happy groups you see there. You are really forced to give in every direction to-day. If you are not on sufficiently intimate terms with a friend to make him a more expensive present, you send him your card. You leave it at his residence with your own hands, supposing your politeness be strong enough to support you through this act of pedestrianism, and turn down one of its ends to indicate that you have been your own messenger. But if your legs refuse their office, the postman's will be more obliging. To those you can make appeal. There is, in fact, a special postal regulation respecting cards sent through the post-office on the Jour de l’An. If they are enclosed in an open envelope they will be delivered in Paris for five centimes instead of ten, the usual price of a single letter. The number sent in this manner is consequently enormous. The unhappy postman, as may be believed, has no holiday on New Year's Day. Almost from early dawn he is abroad heavily laden with his pack, his pack of cards. How gladly would he let some one else deal them for him this day! We will take one more look at the city ere the day wanes and the early night comes on. It will not be a gloomy night, rest certain; café, cabaret, and restaurant will be filled with a merry company; the shops, even after midnight chimes have sounded, will still be brilliant and bustling as the last labours of the day draw to a close; the pavement will still echo with the tread of many footsteps. And now, while yet an hour or two of lingering light remains, how look the streets? They are still filled with the same crowd that occupied them at noon; the same, except that it is a trifle less numerous. It is even gayer, however, than before. All care, in fact, seems to have fled from Paris to-day. There are no more pouting children; no more frowning wives; no more grumbling husbands; no more melancholy bachelors. Cheerfulness and content sit on every face. Look! the halt, the lame, the blind, and the simply indigent have been allowed to come forth into the streets without let or hinderance, without police interference or restriction, to draw upon the stores of kindly feeling which everywhere abound in Paris to-day. Ordinarily only a certain number of these poor sufferers, duly registered and ticketed, are allowed to appeal for charity on the public way, for even beggary in Paris is a monopoly. To-day, however, the trade is free. Indoors, as well as out of doors, there are gaiety and happiness in Paris. There is a public reception at the Tuileries, and all sorts of étrennes in the shape of honours and promotions will be given to numerous functionaries. There is a private reception in every household. Friends and relatives visit each other who, perhaps, have been separated by distance or social position all the previous year. They would not miss the warm embrace, and the loving words, of the Jour de l’An, for all the good or evil fortunes that might happen during the next twelve months. There will be many a gay party to-night, when the visits of the morning are over and the last present has been made. Many an old dame will forget her years as she looks upon the happy group of sons and grandsons clustering round her. Back to the days so distant, but which seem so near, will she turn once again; back to the days when, light of foot as of heart, she danced 'mid a merry circle, gayest of the gay. Ah! when others dance now, she sits all alone in her chair. But how time changes us! If old age is happy, how much more happy is youth! Look at that glad band of little ones! How proudly they display the beautiful gifts they have received! How they pet and hug the new doll or the new gun which has been given to them! Neither doll nor gun will be safe to-night except beneath their pillows, depend upon it. How lovingly they prattle and play! What fine games they have at colin-maillard, main-chaude, and pigeon vole! And even when sleep has fallen heavily upon their eyes they will still be happy. While yet the fond mother held them so securely in her arms, as they sank into slumber, they had wandered far away far away to scenes where even her watchful love cannot follow them. What would you or I give, oh reader, to have such dreams as they will have to-night? But midnight has sounded. The happy day is over. We must wait another year for another Jour de l’An. Another year! What a sad and a gloomy time we shall pass, perhaps, ere we have crossed the limits of this upon which we have just entered. Courage, courage, faint heart! A day like this will shed its radiance far in advance, and light us over the uncertain road we have to traverse.