His First Aim Is To Adorn His Own Person With
What He Calls Fine Cloaths, That Is The Frippery Of The Fashion.
It is no wonder that the heart of a female, unimproved by reason,
and untinctured with natural good sense, should flutter at the
sight of such a gaudy thing, among the number of her admirers:
This impression is enforced by fustian compliments, which her own
vanity interprets in a literal sense, and still more confirmed by
the assiduous attention of the gallant, who, indeed, has nothing
else to mind. A Frenchman in consequence of his mingling with the
females from his infancy, not only becomes acquainted with all
their customs and humours; but grows wonderfully alert in
performing a thousand little offices, which are overlooked by
other men, whose time hath been spent in making more valuable
acquisitions. He enters, without ceremony, a lady's bed-chamber,
while she is in bed, reaches her whatever she wants, airs her
shift, and helps to put it on. He attends at her toilette,
regulates the distribution of her patches, and advises where to
lay on the paint. If he visits her when she is dressed, and
perceives the least impropriety in her coeffure, he insists upon
adjusting it with his own hands: if he sees a curl, or even a
single hair amiss, he produces his comb, his scissars, and
pomatum, and sets it to rights with the dexterity of a professed
friseur. He 'squires her to every place she visits, either on
business, or pleasure; and, by dedicating his whole time to her,
renders himself necessary to her occasions. This I take to be the
most agreeable side of his character: let us view him on the
quarter of impertinence. A Frenchman pries into all your secrets
with the most impudent and importunate curiosity, and then
discloses them without remorse. If you are indisposed, he
questions you about the symptoms of your disorder, with more
freedom than your physician would presume to use; very often in
the grossest terms. He then proposes his remedy (for they are all
quacks), he prepares it without your knowledge, and worries you
with solicitation to take it, without paying the least regard to
the opinion of those whom you have chosen to take care of your
health. Let you be ever so ill, or averse to company, he forces
himself at all times into your bed-chamber, and if it is
necessary to give him a peremptory refusal, he is affronted. I
have known one of those petit maitres insist upon paying regular
visits twice a day to a poor gentleman who was delirious; and he
conversed with him on different subjects, till he was in his
last agonies. This attendance is not the effect of attachment, or
regard, but of sheer vanity, that he may afterwards boast of his
charity and humane disposition: though, of all the people I have
ever known, I think the French are the least capable of feeling
for the distresses of their fellow creatures.
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