But a new nobility grew up in rivalry to the elder one; and as the positions of society became more complicated and uncertain, a supreme civility to some was seen side by side with a sneering insolence to others--a revolution in manners, which embittered as it hastened the revolution of opinions. Thus the manners of the French in the time of Louis XVI. had one feature of similarity with ours at present. A moneyed aristocracy was then rising into power in France, as a moneyed aristocracy is now rising into power in England. This is the aristocracy which demands obsequious servility--which is jealous and fearful of being treated with disrespect; this is the aristocracy which is haughty, insolent, and susceptible; which dreams of affronts and gives them: this is the aristocracy which measures with an uncertain eye the height of an acquaintance; this is the aristocracy which cuts and sneers--this aristocracy, though the aristocracy of the revolution of July, is now too powerless in France to be more than vulgar in its pretensions. French manners, then, if they are not gracious, are at all events not insolent; while ours, unhappily, testify on one hand the insolence, while they do not on the other represent the talent and the grace of that society which presided over the later suppers of the old regime. We have no Monsieur de Fitz-James, who might be rolled in a gutter all his life, as was said by a beautiful woman of his time, "without ever contracting a spot of dirt." We have no Monsieur de Narbonne, who stops in the fiercest of a duel to pick up the ruffled rose that had slipped in a careless moment from his lips during the graceful conflict! You see no longer in France that noble air, that "_great manner_," as it was called, by which the old nobility strove to keep up the distinction between themselves and their worse-born associates to the last, and which of course those associates _assiduously imitated_.
That manner is gone: the French, so far from being a polite nation at the present day, want that easiness of behavior which is the first essential to politeness. Every man you meet is occupied with maintaining his dignity, and talks to you of _his_ position. There is an evident effort and struggle, I will not say to appear better than you are, but to appear _all_ that _you are_, and to allow no person to think that you consider him better than you. Persons, no longer ranked by classes, take each by themselves an individual place in society. They are so many atoms, not forming a congruous or harmonious whole. They are too apt to strut forward singly, and to say with a great deal of action, and a great deal of emphasis, "I am--_nobody_." The French are no longer polite, but in the French nation, as in every nation, there is an involuntary and traditionary respect which hallows what is gone-by; and among the marvels of modern France is a religion which ranks an agreeable smile and a graceful bow as essential virtues of its creed.