The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 140: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

— a am oe ee 134: THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. very handsome circular staircase, with bronze the appearance and the general reputation of balustrades, and carpeted all over, leads up into | being one of the most respectable, as it is assuredly the show-rooms, which occupy the whole of the one of the most fashionable and best frequented, first floor. These are sumptuously furnished : | Magasins des Modes to be found at the West End lustres, vases, and o7-molu clocks embellish the | of London. marble mantel-pieces, and are reflected in the| Before we pass away to a description of her immense mirrors with their massive gilt frames. | neighbour’s, we must say a few words of Madame Splendid chandeliers, all of the finest cut glass, Angelique herself. She is about fifty years of age hang to the ceiling; and these at dusk are lighted | —of a comely and matronly appearance. She is with wax-candles, which flood the apartments | a French woman—as her name, her manners, and with as brilliant a lustre as that which prevails ‘her speech indicate. Somewhat stout, she is in a West-end saloon when a banquet or ball is | nevertheless bustling and active; and she thinks given. The carpets in the show-rooms are so} no trouble too great to bestow upon a customer. thick that the delicate feet of lady-visitresses are Indeed, her bearing is as urbane, her smile as completely lost in them: the patterns are of the | complacent, and the expressions of her gratitude richest description, and match well with the deep as great, towards a lady who merely drops in to crimson paper of the walls and the general style | buy a three-and-sixpenny riband or a half-guinea of the furniture. The costliest as well as the cap, as they are to another customer who leaves most elegant dresses are to be seen in these apart- | behind an order for a twenty-guinea dress. There ments; and whichever way a visitress may turn, | is nothing obtrusive in her politeness: it is mea- she finds her form reflected either in a mirror sured to the utmost nicety. She will only press against the wall, or in an immense oval psyche. | her goods to a certain point—and no farther: she There are few chairs in these rooms—but num- | will expatiate upon how much this or that article bers of sumptuous ottomans, covered with velvet, | is sure to become the complexion of the particular are ranged around. These ottomans are so many | customer with whom she is treating at the time— large chests or boxes, the lids of which are made | but she will not too persuasively force the said to lift up, cushion and all; and from the mys- | articles upon such customer. Thus she gives uni- terfous depths of the interior Madame Angelique | versal satisfaction; and as for her bills, she only or the show-women produce the newest elegancies | sends them in once a-year—about three months of Parisian fashion—such as bonnets, caps, and | after Christmas—remaining perfectly satisfied if materials for ladies’ dresses. they be liquidated any time before the ensuing The show-women themselves are middle-aged | Christmas. It were almost needless to add that persons, but dressed with the utmost taste and | she herself dresses with the most unexc stionable neatness—of affable and obliging manners—and tS taste,—in a manner becoming her years, with the bearing the stamp of unquestionable respectability. | slightest dash of a Parisian coquetry—but yet so Neither in the shop down stairs, nor in the show- far removed from being owtré that it is impossible rooms, are any of the females very young or very to make her look ridiculous. She uses rouge and good-looking: so that if a somewhat particular | pearl-powder with so much skill, that only those lady, or an uxorious husband accompanying his ladies who are equally skilful in the mysteries of wife, pay a visit to Madame Angelique’s establish- | the toilet, could discern how much her complexion ment, nothing meets the eye to induce a suspicion is indebted to those accessories; and her smile as to its perfect propriety. We should add that reveals so admirable a set of teeth, that even the the young women themselves in the work-room, | wearers of false ones themselves would find it diffi- seemed to have been chosen as much for their cult to attribute Madame Angelique’s to the suc- absence of personal charms as, we may suppose, cedaneous art of a renowned dentist in the same for their skilfulness with the needle; and perhaps | street. the door of communication between that room and The tailor’s shop next door is as handsome the shop is intentionally left open, to convince such | in its own way as the Magasin of Madame An- straight-laced lady or particular husband accom- gelique. It is the establishment of no cheap panying his wife, as those whom we have alluded clothier: none of the exquisitely fashioned articles to, that in every possible department of Madame | of raiment displayed in the window, are vulgarized Angelique’s business the females employed are of | by ticketed prices. M. Bertin—for the tailor is modest demeanour, as well as of an age and ap-/a Frenchman, as Madame Angelique is a French- pearance which may defy the breath of scandal. woman—would scorn the idea of selling pantaloons But then, Madame Angelique’s house is a very | at sixteen shillings, surtouts at two guineas, and large one; and there are floors higher than the | paletots at twoten. No suit of clothes is sent out show-rooms. Most of Madame Angelique’s cus- | from his establishment under seven guineas. His tomers know that she is a widow, and that only two | name is in gilt letters over the shop-front—in or three of her principal dependants live on the | brass letters ingeniously stuck on to the middle premises. What, then, does she do with all the | pane of plate-glass—and repeated on a brass-plate upper part of her spacious house? If occasionally | on the shop-door. Everything looks business-like some curious old dowager or ingenuous young | and respectable—yes, and wealthy also, at M. lady happens to put the question, Madame An- | Bertin’s; and if a passer-by glances up at the gelique, with one of her most amiable smiles, | windows on the drawing-room or higher floors, he speaks of the immense stock of goods which she is | beholds rich draperies and the tops of gilt back constantly compelled to keep on hand—and thus | chairs, all indicative of the sumptuous interior of promptly attributes a use and a purpose to all the | M. Bertin’s habitation. As for M. Bertin himself, up-stairs rooms which are not occupied by herself, | he is a short, middle-aged man—very active and her principal women, and her domestics. Inshort,| very obsequious—tolerably good-looking for his the establishment of which we are speaking, has | years—exquisitely dressed—making a large display COMMICLOOOKS. Conn