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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860 by Various
page 5 of 289 (01%)
resources at hand, and relied only on brute force to win advantage. We
beheld the same contrast recently in the Crimea; while exposure and
impatience thinned the ranks of the brave islanders, their Gallic
allies constructed roads, dug where they could not build a shelter, and
ingeniously prepared various dishes from a meagre larder, fighting off,
meantime, chagrin and _ennui_ with as much alacrity as they did
Cossacks.

_Finesse_ characterizes servants not less than courtiers, the
cab-driver as well as the notary, the composition of a dish as well as
the drift of a comedy. This quality seems a result of the conflict of
intelligences in a state of great, material civilization; nowhere is it
more observable than in Paris life. What bullyism is to the English,
shrewdness to the Yankee, and intrigue to the Italian, is _finesse_,
which is a union of insight and address, to the French. This normal
attribute is another proof how the economy of Gallic life is reduced to
an art. It is the expression in manners of Rochefoucauld's maxims,
of Richelieu's policy, of Talleyrand's cunning. It is favored by the
tendency to minuteness of excellence and love of system before noted.
To understand what superior range is afforded to such a principle in
France, it is only requisite to consult the memoirs of a celebrated
woman, or even an old Guide or Picture of Paris, such as in former days
the provincial gentlemen used to study over their breakfast, in order
to learn the _savoir vivre_ of the metropolis. Itineraries of other
cities merely describe streets, public institutions, the fairs,
the courts, and the places of fashionable amusement; one of these
curiosities of literature now before us, published less than a century
ago, describes, as available resources to the stranger, _Gouvernantes,
Emeutes, Reves Politiques, L'Art de Diner, Bureaux d'Esprit_,
--corresponding to our modern blue-stocking coteries, _femmes de
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