Nothing is further from
the French taste than tea-drinking, and yet a Parisian lady will
now invite you gravely to "five o'clocker" with her, although I can
remember when that beverage was abhorred by the French as a
medicine; if you had asked a Frenchman to take a cup of tea, he
would have answered:
"Why? I am not ill!"
Even Paris (that supreme and undisputed arbiter of taste) has
submitted to English influence; tailor-made dresses and low-heeled
shoes have become as "good form" in France as in London. The last
two Presidents of the French Republic have taken the oath of office
dressed in frock-coats instead of the dress clothes to which French
officials formerly clung as to the sacraments.
The municipalities of the little Southern cities were quick to
seize their golden opportunity, and everything was done to detain
the rich English wandering down towards Italy. Millions were spent
in transforming their cramped, dirty, little towns. Wide
boulevards bordered with palm and eucalyptus spread their sunny
lines in all directions, being baptized PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS or
BOULEVARD VICTORIA, in artful flattery. The narrow mountain roads
were widened, casinos and theatres built and carnival FETES
organized, the cities offering "cups" for yacht- or horse-races,
and giving grounds for tennis and golf clubs. Clever Southern
people! The money returned to them a hundredfold, and they lived
to see their wild coast become the chosen residence of the
wealthiest aristocracy in Europe, and the rocky hillsides blossom
into terrace above terrace of villa gardens, where palm and rose
and geranium vie with the olive and the mimosa to shade the white
villas from the sun.
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