are
solely with a view to introduce them into it or to prepare them for
it. Even in the last years of the ancient regime[2237] little boys
have their hair powdered, "a pomatumed chignon (bourse), ringlets, and
curls"; they wear the sword, the chapeau under the arm, a frill, and a
coat with gilded cuffs; they kiss young ladies' hands with the air of
little dandies. A lass of six years is bound up in a whalebone waist;
her large hoop-petticoat supports a skirt covered with wreaths; she
wears on her head a skillful combination of false curls, puffs, and
knots, fastened with pins, and crowned with plumes, and so high that
frequently "the chin is half way down to her feet"; sometimes they put
rouge on her face. She is a miniature lady, and she knows it; she is
fully up in her part, without effort or inconvenience, by force of
habit; the unique, the perpetual instruction she gets is that on her
deportment; it may be said with truth that the fulcrum of education in
this country is the dancing-master.[2238] They could get along with him
without any others; without him the others were of no use. For, without
him, how could people go through easily, suitably, and gracefully the
thousand and one actions of daily life, walking, sitting down, standing
up, offering the arm, using the fan, listening and smiling, before eyes
so experienced and before such a refined public? This is to be the great
thing for them when they become men and women, and for this reason it is
the thing of chief importance for them as children. Along with graces
of attitude and of gesture, they already have those of the mind and
of expression. Scarcely is their tongue loosened when they speak the
polished language of their parents. The latter amuse themselves with
them and use them as pretty dolls; the preaching of Rousseau, which,
during the last third of the last century, brought children into
fashion, produces no other effect. They are made to recite their lessons
in public, to perform in proverbs, to take parts in pastorals. Their
sallies are encouraged. They know how to turn a compliment, to invent
a clever or affecting repartee, to be gallant, sensitive, and even
spirituelle. The little Duc d'Angouleme, holding a book in his hand,
receives Suffren, whom he addresses thus: "I was reading Plutarch and
his illustrious men. You could not have entered more apropos."[2239]
The children of M. de Sabran, a boy and a girl, one eight and the other
nine, having take