The Gentleman's Daughter

As I mentioned in a previous post about the books I took to France, I really enjoyed two historical non-fiction books, each written by women who have made BBC television series.

Amanda Vickery's book, The Gentleman's Daughter, draws mainly on the correspondence and ledgers of a woman, Elizabeth Parker Shackleton, who lived in the early 1800s, in Yorkshire.  Vickery seemed mostly interested in determining how much independence women of the gentry had during that time.  Did they run their homes?  Make decisions about spending money?  Go out in public alone?  In spite of the fact that women had no right to own property in that day - their husbands owned all - what did society expect from and given them expectation of?  I'll leave you to read the book to find the answers to all those questions, but there were some details I found fascinating.

Women tended to have household accounts which detailed all expenditures.  A good housekeeper - this referring to the management of the home - also had an inventory of the contents of her home.  Dishes, linens, furniture, you name it, went on the list and most homemakers could and did document the source and cost of all these items.  This was also the practice in Georgian America and served as an aide when Tories loyal to the British cause applied to the crown for a type of disaster relief following the revolutionary war.  Men tended to 'list' land, house and 'sundries'; they needed the women of the house to fill in the details.  

Vickery described how Shackleton bought entire bolts of linen and sewed men's shirts, made table clothes and other household items with her own hands.  If she wanted other than plain white, she sent the fabric to Manchester for professional dyeing.  Even in a well-to-do homes of the gentry, fabrics were used over and over, cut down into smaller pieces as they wore out.  A couple furnished their home when they married and this tended to be their furniture for life, particularly as the well made pieces were of a quality to be handed down over generations.  

I'd always thought that it wasn't until the industrial revolution or even World War I that the servant shortage began, however even in the 1800s there was a very high turnover among servants.  Even then, members of the working class objected to the amount of work expected of them for small wages.  Young women also found it difficult to maintain the subservient demeanor expected of them to demonstrate they 'knew their place'.   The longest serving members of staff in Elizabeth Shackleton's house were two of the men, with eleven and eight years.  Female servants generally left within a few months.  Vickery seems to conclude that Shackleton's difficulties weren't that unusual, based on the exchange of information, between her and many other women of the district, concerning servants.

Given that country households had to be largely self-sufficient, making everything from butter to laundry soap, labour shortages were a big problem.  Shackleton had a variety of arrangements from live-in staff to people she brought in by the day or to do a specific piece of work.  Having servants sounds somewhat luxurious, but managing servants sounds like my kind of hell.  Far from never lifting a finger, the woman of gentry had to have knowledge of a great many processes involved in house work, in order to train staff and to be able to judge the outcome.  

This book is lauded as an important contribution to social history in general and to English feminist history in particular.  It convinced me that keeping house was no simple task, even with an army of servants.

By the way, if you are a Jane Austen fan, you might enjoy Amanda Vickery's exploration of a Regency ball.  This programme shows a recreation of the dance, the clothes, and the food, etc., at Chawton House, the home of Jane's brother Edward.  Enjoy! 

The Marais

Jane and Chris are coming for a (Chris's) family wedding this summer and they plan to stop in Paris for a bit.  They've been all over Europe before, but I understand why she'd like to see it again without small children along.  I'm in awe of people who manage to travel with children.  I find it challenging enough just travelling with Bill.  

Jane mentioned having found some walks they were going to do, so Bill and I borrowed the idea and did one of Le Marais.  This was only supposed to be about 3 km - less than 2 miles, but along with Pere LeChaise and Bill's Kerry Greenwood expedition on the south bank, we walked for 7 hours.  My bruised, swollen feet told me 'comfortable' shoes weren't sufficient for this sort of thing.

Le Marais is an historic district on the right bank of the Seine.  Our tour began at the Hotel de Ville, which is too big to photograph properly, so I'll let Google show it to you. 

Some of the old timber houses go back to the 17th and 18th centuries.   

Their age seemed to show at the top of the ground level floor, protruding at a rickety angle.  

They reminded me of skinny women, standing on a street corner, their hip bones sticking out.  

There were many grand hotels, including the Hotel de  Sens with it's manicured garden.

We passed this once without realizing what it was.

Parisians have loads of nice places for a picnic lunch.




The Hotel de Sully was also impressive.

Hotel de Sully, built 1625-30.

 

I must admit after a while the hotels all looked the same to me.  




I can only take in so much at once.

As recommended, we took a break at a park known as the Place des Vosges, the oldest planned square in Paris.  

Arcade at Place des Vosges

It is surrounded by arcades on all sides and the present structure was built by Henri IV in the early 1600s.  I later read that this was formerly the site of a palace and a tournament in which Henri II was killed while jousting in 1559.  Trust Bill to remember that he got stabbed in the eye.

It was lovely in the sun.  That man across from Bill was falling
asleep.  I kept waiting for him to fall off the bench.

I knew that Victor Hugo once lived in one of the apartments, but it was also the birthplace of Madame de Sevigné.  As we left I saw a sign that suggested there was free Wifi there, or perhaps in Paris as a whole.  What a modern concept!  Why doesn't every city do that?

The Rue de Rosiers (rosebushes) was described as being in the Old Jewish quarter and this area had a bit more personality.   



Bill loved the signs in French and Yiddish.  




I liked the bespoke tailor's window.





We left that quarter on the Rue Pavee, the first street in Paris to be paved.  This took us past a beautiful Art Nouveau synagogue.

I'm conscious that there is nothing new I can show you.  Paris has been discovered and re-discovered for centuries.  Every inch of it has been crawled and photographed.  If you never have been, it might be interesting to see photos, and it might not.

I did grab a couple of pictures of shops that were intriguing but I didn't enter.  One was Sensitive et Fils.  Another was Isobel Marant.  The IM video shows some interesting clothes, but the soundtrack is dire:  someone has the hiccups or something.  If I were to go back to do some shopping, I would focus on the Rue de Sevigne and the Rue Debelleyme.  

We passed an art display consisting of hand written signs in English.  Some of the signs were funny.  I wonder if they are from t-shirts or something?

The best things in life aren't things

I've no idea why I'm out of bed

I wish Morgan Freeman narrated my life

Am I fired yet?

I'm not myself today...maybe I'm you

Bill's Kerry Greenwood expedition took us to the Rue de Chat qui Peche (the cat that fishes), which is really an alley leading to some other interesting streets.  Also to Rue Jacob.  Some very interesting-looking people (rich and something else; edgy, somehow)  came out of L'Echelle de Jacob (Jacob's Ladder), a private bar/club, just after we passed.  I snapped a photo just too soon, because I liked the lettering on their sign.  Whatever happened took place at the back of number 27, but of course we couldn't go back there to see it.  I'll have to read the book to find out what all happened.

If you'd really like to see LeMarais, you could print out the Fodor's tour, read Wikipedia about each of the places and look at photographs on Google images.  It would be much easier on your poor feet, believe me.

Part XL - Duels and the Leisure Class

This is a series about Theory of the Leisure Class, a book written by American economist Thorstein Veblen, the man who gave us the phrase 'conspicuous consumption'.  Chapter Ten is titled Modern Survivals of Prowess.

“Apart from warlike activity proper, the institution of the duel is also an expression of the same superior readiness for combat; and the duel is a leisure-class institution. The duel is in substance a more or less deliberate resort to a fight as a final settlement of a difference of opinion.”

Veblen asserts that duelling is a leisure class custom.  It occurs only where there is an hereditary leisure class and is practised exclusively among members of the leisure class, except for military officers (who are normally from the leisure class anyhow) and among lower-class delinquents who are either by nature or by training of a similar predatory disposition. 

Ordinary men generally hold their tempers, unless alcohol has lowered their inhibitions.  However, well-bred gentleman and low class louts have this habit in common, of settling disputes with fighting.  The latter is asserting his manhood.  The former is acting out some chivalric code and defending his honour, which in this context is about social standing or respectability.  

In reading about the history of duelling, I found the section on ‘culture of law’ vs ‘culture of honour’ interesting, in that it refers to nomadic peoples.  These people had two reasons for not having a culture of law:  a) their wealth is carried around with them and so vulnerable to theft; and b) wandering in the wilds, they have no recourse to lawmen, courts, etc. and so have to undertake matters for themselves. 

The article also refers to nomadic types in ‘the borders’.  This is the area around the border between England and Scotland which was wild and unsettled long after the south of England was more peaceful.  The noble families in the North like the Percy’s tended to be Catholic and thus have little allegiance to the Protestant government of England.  Nomadic people include sheep herders of the North of England and Scotland.  These are the people who supposedly populated the Southern U.S. where the culture of honour is said to still exist.  I found this discussion very interesting.  I’ve always said that Newcastle-upon-Tyne had a lot in common with Oklahoma, but I didn’t know about this!

The history of duelling is interesting as well.  I think of foppish men in tights duelling with swords, but of course all those showdowns in Gunsmoke were enacting the duelling tradition.  Did you know that James Arness was married to a woman named Janet Surtees and that Surtees is a name definitely associated with the Newcastle area?... Me neither, but where were we?  

Every area seems to have its own traditions but a common feature is the agreement on the weapon of choice.  Careful choice of this weapon, eg offering up trichinella-infested sausages, could aid in avoiding a duel.  More likely weapons were swords, sticks (more about which, later) or pistols.  Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln each narrowly avoided being drawn into a duel.  Old West aside, possibly the most famous duel in the US is the one in which Vice President Aaron Burr killed former Secretary of State Alexander Hamilton in 1804; Burr was indicted but not tried for murder. 

William Pitt became the youngest ever Prime Minister of Britain at age 24.  Between his first and second terms as PM, he fought a duel with Whig politician George Tierney in 1798; luckily neither was injured.  Duels were less and less popular after the 18^th Century but there is mention that a young Queen Victoria hoped that Lord Cardigan ‘got off easily’.  Being a Lord and tried by a jury of his 'peers', he was unanimously acquitted in spite of being thought to have been ‘unsporting’ in his use of a pistol with concealed rifling and a hair trigger (whatever that means). 

Veblen clearly thinks duels are a childish act, probably the prevalent opinion of his time.  He goes on at length about the period in a boy's life called the 'predaceous interval' and claims that 

"The boy usually knows to nicety, from day to day, how he and his associates grade in respect of relative fighting capacity; and in the community of boys there is ordinarily no secure basis of reputability for any one who, by exception, will not or cannot fight on invitation."

Of course, the average boy outgrows this phase, but 

"...the leisure-class and the delinquent-class character shows a persistence into adult life of traits that are normal to childhood and youth, and that are likewise normal or habitual to the earlier stages of culture."

So Veblen seems to see the aggressive, predatory nature he attributes to the leisure class as being childish.  In the case of duels, I'd have to say he has a good point.  

People are Dying to Get In

Death and Taxes
This was the post title I'd originally planned.  Bill and I managed to bring back some sort of French flu and we have languished and coughed for weeks. Bill hasn't run more than around the block for ages. I'm just beginning to feel like a human with a future instead of a near corpse awaiting release.  



I've also been working on my US tax returns (we ex-pats get an extra two months).  Of course the computer rebelled, Microsoft having decided it didn't like the old files with important data.  



Thankfully, Bill is an able computer technician.  I'm probably tempting fate by saying this but the process wasn't nearly as painful this time.  Probably because I'd done a bit of ground work at the start of the year and my files were in better order.  

Touch wood, I won't have just provoked an audit or something.  I know I'm honest and well-intentioned, but I'm also a tightwad and no tax expert, so there is always the chance that I've erred in some way...  But let's talk about something pleasant, like visiting a cemetery.





Pere LaChaise 
The first I ever heard of this place was in reading about Nancy Mitford, who spent her last years in Paris.  Her lover, Charles DeGaulle's chief of staff Colonel Gaston Palewski (who probably didn't much love her), was upset that he couldn't be  buried in Pere LaChaise.  I'm not sure why he couldn't manage it, perhaps the rules were even more strict 30-40 years ago.  




I should have known this 110 acre cemetery was on a big hill; Palewski whinged not just that he couldn't get in, he couldn't get a good location overlooking the city.  People do have funny ideas about death, don't they?  

Given the number of people who have been buried there over 200 years, I almost wonder if it always was a hill.  Of course we did it the hard way.  I've just found we could have gone to a different Metro stop and started at the top instead of at the bottom.  Oh well...

Colette

Oscar Wilde's Grave
There is something a bit strange about a cemetery that doubles as a tourist attraction.  We bought a map at the newsagent next to the Metro station (Pere LaChaise).  It located the graves some of the more famous persons interred within.  I didn't know a lot of them, in fact I only recognise about 20 of the more famous names.  The problem of fame and tourists seems to most plague the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.  They have both been fenced off to prevent further desecration and sure enough we found groups of kids around each.




I was disappointed that reflection on the glass enclosure around Wilde's grave meant I couldn't read the inscription that appeared to give a precis of his life. I was electrified when Bill excitedly exclaimed 'Shelley, his bits!  His bits!  They've chopped his willy off!'  How embarrassing.  I've no idea what 'bits' an Assyrian angel on the grave of a gay man should have, but I didn't want to talk about it at that volume amongst strangers, and I certainly wasn't going to peer closely enough to verify the details.  I couldn't make Bill shut-up, he was having so much fun, so I just snarled that I didn't know him and walked off.  Humourless of me, I know; living in Britain hasn't completely changed me yet. As it happens, it turns out Bill was right.





Cemetery / Park / Gallery
I'm probably a bit weird in that I find many cemeteries beautiful and peaceful, particularly old ones.  That said, I really couldn't enjoy the British cemetery at Montecassino, Italy.  The markers give names and ages and, believe me, it is upsetting.  

Most cemeteries, though, have a longer history and a wider age range.  There are sad stories but also long lives to celebrate and large markers indicating some prosperity.  



People also demonstrate a wide range of ideas in their selection of monuments, from exquisite to egotistical, tasteful to trashy, laudable to laughable (I enjoyed that bit of alliteration).  



Visitors in cemeteries seem to walk - even with their dogs - more sedately, speak more quietly and seem generally more reflective than they do elsewhere. I've gone to Preston Cemetery, our 'local', on a couple of runs and found it made me feel more alive than usual, though I was careful to stay away from anyone involved in an actual funeral.  Did anyone ever see and enjoy Harold and Maude?  




At Pere LaChaise, there is wonderful dignity in these tiny little 'houses' with the family names engraved over the door.  Most seem to just have empty shelves inside, a few had chairs.  Some of the chairs were crumbling with age.  I couldn't help but wonder about the stories behind them.  Some of the statues are as much art as memorial.

Some show the person themself or give an idea of their life's work.  Others express the grief felt at their passing or hope at meeting again in heaven.

This photo enabled me to find more information, just in case you wanted to know:

Rest with Jim Morrison, Federic Chopin or Molière has a price:  2329 euros for a thirty year concession.  3441 euros for fifty years.  And again, this is a base rate with a concession of two meters by one meter.  Concessions are traded in perpetuity from 10,911 euros.

Concession 10 years:  € 688
Lease 30 years: € 2329
Concession 50 years: € 3441
Perpetual concession:  €10,911

Source:  http://www.journaldunet.com/economie/enquete/concession-cimetiere-les-plus-cheres/1-pere-lachaise.shtml

Jeanne Beaudon, AKA Jane Avril

Ossuaries
Where I come from, people get buried and there is plenty of space to do so.  I gather this is less common in Europe and increasingly less common here in Britain where land is at a premium.  Most folks here appear to be cremated and their ashes scattered.  I've not made any decisions about this for myself.  As a kid I always though cremation sounded horrific and being 'scattered' seems very impermanent.  Sounds like I haven't actually got my head around being dead, eh?  

Sarah Bernhardt

However, if those ideas are a little unpalatable, I find the concept of an ossuary entirely chilling.  I first met this idea in John Connolly's excellent book, The Black Angel, which talks about a very famous ossuary in Prague.  Though I've been to Prague several times, I haven't visited and don't plan to.  I have been to one of the old cemeteries there, and it's impressive.

Moliere

What I didn't realise when we were in Paris - and perhaps it's just as well - is that Pere LaChaise also has an ossuary.  Nancy Mitford apparently knew this.  

She teased and comforted Palewski by telling him that it was just as well he wouldn't be buried there.  She said that was where Chanel went to find old bones to ground up and put into her cosmetics.  So, that gives me other than my original tightwad reason not to splash out on Chanel make-up.

If you want more pictures of the amazing sights of Pere LaChaise, here is a video.  I suggest pushing the 'mute' button.

Houghton

Thank you, Google Maps!

UK Roads 
The first day of our trip we set off and drove - well, Bill drove - about 200 miles.  In the old motorhome, that's about enough.  

US readers will think that's quite wimpy, perhaps, but British roads are nothing like those in the US, and aren't likely ever to be.  

I think that's meant to be a herb garden.

 
Small roads that pass farm houses by a few feet have gradually grown into massive main roads.  I often wonder about the air quality it some of those houses and how do the residents sleep with the noise and the worry that some lorry might come crashing through their bedroom one night?  

I just liked how they did the front door...

At one place on the M62 in Yorkshire there is a whole farm in the 'central reservation' of the motorway.  

Terraced cottages with thatched roof covered in chicken wire.

Roundabouts at junctions both facilitate and slow the traffic.  At really large ones with nothing coming, a car can almost zip straight over, but anything like a lorry or camper van has to slow to make the curves.  We were travelling mid-day.  The best that can be said for UK roads is that billboards aren't allowed. 

Another version of the scarecrow?

North and South
In a previous post I mentioned Gaskell's book of this name and Susan Partlan commented on having seen a BBC TV production.  The book is about attitudes in 1855 concerning social class and about manufacturing in particular.  The world has moved on considerably in the past 150 years or so, but there are still significant differences in the North and South of England in work, wealth, weather, health, politics, religion, you name it.  

Romantic window on the Water Close cottages... If it had been 'closet' it would
have been a romantic loo...

I expect the North would love to still have that 'stigma' associated with manufacturing...at least they could have jobs.  Hard to believe that such a small place (England is roughly 500 miles NE to SW) could have such differences.  Just remember all roads lead to London.

Bill commented on the tiny stones that made up this wall.
This isn't really a photo of a Norman church.  It's
actually a photo of BLUE SKY!

Houghton Village
We stayed just the one night at Houghton.  Bill was pleased to learn the caravan site managers were thrilled to see our ancient bus; apparently ours is a rare breed.   

And I complain about the maintenance costs on our house...

The caravan site sits behind a National Trust property, Houghton Mill.  We didn't go inside as the outside was sufficiently attractive for us.  

Another sideways front door.

We took a walk as the rain had abated and found people behaving in a village-y fashion, having a BBQ fundraiser for their church.   On the village 'green' under the old clock tower (with a thatched roof).  You can't get much village-y-er than that!

Yes, I still get excited about fonts...

This is one of the main attractions that the Womens Institute holds for me, being about to walk over to the parish hall and do something village-y.  

Ahhh... the smell of sausages!

It would be better if I'd known everyone in the room for 30 years.  That will of course take time; I just hope everyone stays put (as if...).




The Norman (Anglican) church was of particular interest, not just because of the tiny stones that were used in its construction, but because the spire was of two separate periods, the top part obviously (to him) having been added later.

Houghton is in Cambridgeshire, which though not one of the Home Counties of vernacular geography (I learned a new phrase there) is about an hour on the train to London.  On our return stop there Bill commented that most of the residents at 8pm seemed to either be cycling home from work or going for a jog.  That's what affluent folks do down South, apparently.   

Part XXXIX - War and the Leisure Class

This is part of a series about Theory of the Leisure Class, a book by American Economist Thorstein Veblen.  We are now in the tenth of fourteen chapters, which is titled Modern Survivals of Prowess.  

The leisure class lives alongside of, not as part of, the industrial community.  When Veblen says the relationship is pecuniary rather than industrial, he’s talking about the financing, or the ownership or maybe a position on the Board of Directors.  

"Admission to the [leisure] class is gained by exercise of the pecuniary aptitudes – aptitudes for acquisition rather than for serviceability."  

He suggests that the population of the leisure class changes through ‘selective sifting of the human material’ but that the overall scheme of their lifestyle continues to be a heritage from the past, embodying ‘habits and ideals of the earlier barbarian period’.  These ideals are also passed on to the lower orders to a greater or lesser extent. 

The most obvious aptitude from the barbarian age is that of fighting, of making war. 

“In cases where the predatory activity is a collective one, this propensity is frequently called the martial spirit, or, latterly, patriotism. It needs no insistence to find assent to the proposition that in the countries of civilized Europe the hereditary leisure class is endowed with this martial spirit in a higher degree than the middle classes.”

Veblen says that war is honourable and confers honour and the admiration of all men.  Enthusiasm for war and the predatory temperament are found largely among the leisure classes, but particularly among those of the hereditary leisure class. 

“Moreover, the ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government, which, in point of origin and developmental content, is also a predatory occupation.”

The only class which can match the ‘habitual bellicose frame of mind’ is the ‘lower-class delinquents’.   

Somehow that phrase about the occupation of the upper class being government and all this talk of war - not to mention the use of the term 'patriotism' - caused me to flash back to my last year of high school, my junior year, 1972.  My peers were nearing draft age and the threat of going to Vietnam loomed large.  A few enlisted as they became of age, just to exert that little bit of control.  Others hoped to get into college to avoid the draft, but how to pay for it was a mystery.  I remember feeling helpless.  

There is a bit in one of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher novels, set in the 1920s, just after World War I.  Some old gent says to another "Why don't young people listen to their elders any more?"  The answer was "Because we told them all to go and die."  

  

Of course in the usual times, most of the industrial classes are averse to any other than a defensive fight and perhaps even a bit reluctant then.  The more civilised a community, the less aggressive they are, but they can eventually be roused to assert themselves martially.  Veblen believes that the more ethnically homogeneous a population, the less distinction there is  between classes, and the less war-like they will be.  It could be that any resentment about class differences may fuel the fighting spirit.  Europe, consisting of many nation-states and different tribes, of course is quite war like.  America, being the melting pot that it has prided itself on being, has of course followed suit.