School Life in Paris

Excerpt: School Life in Paris

Letter I

My dearest Ethel,

I promised to write and tell you all about my new school life here, and having now had ten days of it, I can give you a very fair idea of what it is like. To begin with, it is about as unlike Mrs. Walker’s establishment as anything you can possibly imagine. There, if you remember, we were kept grinding all day long at History and Geography, and dry things of that kind; and, with the exception of the fact that she always saw to it that our stays were tightly-laced, because mamma insisted on it, we were taught not to think about our clothes, and we certainly never got the chance of being dressed in any but the very dawdiest style. It makes me quite shudder now to look back upon the awful shapeless garments, the hideous cotton gloves, and the low-heeled, broad-toed boots which we used to wear, when we were under her.

The head-mistress here, or “Madame,” as we have to call her, is a tall handsome woman, of about thirty, exquisitely dressed in the very height of fashion, and in such a way as to show off to the very best advantage her really magnificent figure. When I was first introduced to her, I was quite over-awed by her grandeur; while she on the hand was, I think, horrified at my ill-fitting and unfashionable clothes. When however she learnt that Mamma was willing that she should spend upon my clothes any amount of money that she thought proper, she immediately carried me off, to have me fitted out in the latest Parisian style.

Our first visit was to the corsetière, which revealed the fact that, in spite of my ill-fitting clothes, the waist beneath them had been carefully laced-in, ever since I was ten years old, so that I was easily able to wear the smallest and longest-waisted pair of corsets that the corsetière had in stock. This I found caused the greatest delight to Madame who takes a special pride in having all her pupils as small-waisted and as tightly-corsetted as herself. She accordingly ordered a pair with a considerably smaller waist measurement to be specially-made for me, assuring me that, after a little training, my figure would easily bear the constraint, while she pointed out that all the other girls in the school would be mad with envy, as, in spite of their enthusiastic efforts, none of them could hope to attain to such a tiny waist for a long time to come.

We next bought a supply of exquisite under-linen and night dresses, the trying-on of which caused Madame still further to compliment me on the fine development of my bust and hips. The point over which she seemed in despair was my feet, which were still shod in the large square-toed English boots that I had worn at Mrs. Walker’s. When however these and my thick woolen stockings had been removed, and the latter replaced by dainty black cobwebs of open-worked silk, it became apparent that my feet were not so very large after all, and to my own astonishment as well as hers, a very small pair of patent-leather shoes, with the tiniest pointed toes and three-inch heels, which had excited my warmest admiration on first entering the shop, were slipped on my feet and buttoned by the skilled chausseur without the slightest difficulty.

When she finally took me back, with my hair frizzed and curled in the latest style, by a firstrate coiffeur, and surmounted by a fashionable picture-hat with a suitable veil, my figure displayed by a smart gown that made the most of every curve and undulation, my hands encased in lavender gloves, sewn with black, of the most exquisitely soft kid, and my feet in the fairy-like shoes that I have already described, I simply did not recognise myself, when I first confronted the immense looking-glass, reaching to the ground, which I found one of the most conspicuous objects in my large and luxurious bedroom.

“As you are so much older than most of the new girls who come to me,” Madame explained, I am treating you as a senior pupil, and have given you a bed-room on the upper floor, where the five other senior and more grown-up girls sleep.” This did not convey very much to me at the time, but I found out afterwards that it meant a good deal.

There are fifteen girls in the school, and I soon found out that among the elder ones the chief object of each was to out-do the rest in smartness of appearance—a form of competition which was warmly encouraged by Madame, and which came to a head particularly on Sunday morning when we turned out ready dressed for Church.

Thanks to the excellent taste displayed by Madame in selecting my clothes, and thanks also to the skill of the maid who was assigned to me to dress me and do my hair, I was enabled to turn out as well coiffée, gantée, chaussée and corsetée, as the smartest of them; in fact I was soon given to understand that I was considered the most fashionable looking of them all, and for this reason I was allowed the privilege of walking with Madame, whose splendour on Sunday morning was exquisite, without being in any way loud or in bad taste.

As we took our seats in Church I perceived that the eyes of every man in the place were fixed upon us, and it was very evident that the effect of our smart hats and gowns and dainty light kid gloves was not by any means thrown away.

On Sunday afternoon we went out for a walk, and again attracted a good deal of attention, which evidently gratified Madame’s vanity; but for my part I was more occupied in looking at the wonderful costumes worn by the lady-bicyclists. Many of the so-called knickerbocker costumes are so tight as to be nothing more nor less than “tights,” and are worn in such a way as would be called positively indecent in England, as the ladies have no corsets underneath them, but wear only a belt. Here, however, especially those with full voluptuous figures, seem to think nothing of displaying them in this very open and suggestive manner and I observed that Madame was literally feasting her eyes on some of the very tight “culottes,” especially when the hips and legs were of an extra-voluptuous and appetizing kind.

One of the girls told me that the reason why bicycling is so fashionable among women just now, is that they have only recently found out that the front point of the saddle makes you feel awfully naughty as your legs work on each side of it. I could not make out what she meant at the time, but I do now, as you will understand later on.

In the evening, after dinner, the five senior girls asked if they might go to bed early, as they were rather tired—a permission which Madame readily granted, with a smile, and suggested to me that I had better go too. When I had been in my room a little while, all the five girls came crowding in, which I knew was contrary to rules; but they evidently had something on hand, so I said nothing. After a few remarks Which I did not understand, one of the girls said to me “Have you ever heard of Lesbos?”

I replied that I had not.

“Well” she said, “we five are the ‘Lesbian Society,’ and as you are on this floor we want you to join.”

Excerpt From: Anonymous. “School Life in Paris.”