in its observance, demands from the observer tenfold strength.

If you would escape condemnation yourselves, pity whilst you admire those who, from a sense of right, have taken upon themselves the necessary performance of a painful and thankless task.

CHAPTER VI.

VIENNA AND ITS SOCIAL HABITS.

I TOLD you that people in Vienna were not booklearned, as in Berlin, that is, there does not lie their speciality (why not give the word droit de bourgeoisie at once? it is such a good one). The Viennese are, above all, people of the world, as the meaning of the word is in French, gens du mondenamely, people who before being anything else, are gentlemen and gentlewomen conversant with the habits, occupations, duties and diversions of the world in which gentlemen and gentlewomen are required to live.

Here I must pause, for I foresee that I am exposing myself to an almost universal attack from

those who will not take the pains to reflect upon what a gentleman really is; but who imagine the term to represent some overbearing, arrogant, ill-bred puppy, who delights in hearing himself called "My Lord," or some empty, consequential, grave coxcomb, who keeps aloof from the rest of God's creatures out of respect for his own rank.

In England, where the meaning of the word gentleman is, I will not say better, but by far more generally understood than in any other country, we have no conception whatever of what constitutes a gentleman abroad, or whence the word really springs. Gentilhomme and Edelmann are terms we accept and employ, but we neither perfectly understand them, nor take the trouble to know what differs in them from the signification of the word gentleman with us.

A few words en passant upon France, where time has been when gentlemen, models for those of the whole world, were plentiful. The gentilhomme is a man about whose birth and genealogy there can be no discussion ;* he cannot be the grandson of a tailor or a carpenter, and still be a gentilhomme; because

* See the Prince de Ligne upon this subject: "La Noblesse," in his "Mémoires," Vol. 11., p. 376.

the positive rights, the material privileges which in former times made gentilshommes of his ancestors, in virtue of which he is a gentilhomme himself, are wanting. But may he be a gentleman? The answer with us cannot admit of a doubt, but it is a very different thing as regards our neighbours. With us, gentlemanliness is a something inborn in the individual, not essentially belonging and confined to the race. Our floating elements of aristocracy are diffused over the whole population, and for that reason the aristocratic principle with us is in no danger of perishing politically, as it has been in other nations.*

No man is a gentleman who is not noble in all his dealings, who is not a slave to the right, and who can for one instant hesitate between right and wrong; the man about whom you can feel a doubt is not a gentleman. Now, you may doubt of every man in France, unless-mark this well-unless there be some reason which commands him imperiously to do his duty. This reason he finds in his honour, the chivalrous honour of his ancestors, which he is determined to keep untarnished. It is a noble, a lofty, an

* Vide upon "Natural Aristocracy," Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," and what he says there of Legitimate presumptions;" also Lord Brougham's "Political Philosophy."

inspiring sentiment, but not a sentiment accessible to all! This is why a gentilhomme in France is always a gentleman, and why it is so difficult to make a gentleman out of a Frenchman who is not so born. There is no way but the sword. Military distinction ! that gives at once the incentive to the individual himself, and to his descendants the precedent. But this is the reason of that fact which so often excites the astonishment of English people; namely, that, in the middle classes of France there are no gentlemen--no men who feel themselves forced to be honour able by family tradition, or who would be sure of themselves if tempted by interest to commit a dishonest act.

The French must be sublime or be nothing. They are so excessive in all their feelings, so exaltés, that they must see beyond themselves, out of themselves, almost beyond human capacity, some end at which to attain, and the attainment of which will gain for them glory or renown. Two classes alone can be

cases.

* I must again repeat that this does not apply to personal There are instances of most rascally gentilshommes, as there are examples of gentlemanlike bourgeois; both are really extremely rare. But individuals should be as little made to suffer for the faults of their class, as a whole nation should be condemned because of the defects of a few isolated members of it.

VOL. II.

H