The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

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: | Magasinse des Modes to be found at the West End lustres, ‘vases, and or-mols clocks embellish the | of London. marble mantel-pieces, and aré reflected in the Before we phes away to a description of her jmmense mirrors with their massive gilt frames. | neighbour’s, we must day 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 /s French woman—as her name, her manners, and with as brilliant lustre as that which prevails| her speech indicate. Somewhat stout, she is in a West-end saloon when a banguet or Ball is given. The ts in the show-rooms are .s0 thick that the delicate feet of lady-visitresses are completely lost in them: the patterns are of the richest description, and match well with the deep crimson paper of the walls and the general style of the furniture. The costliest as well as the most elegant dresses are to be seen in theese apart- ments; and whichever way a visitress may turn, she finds her form reflected either in a mirror inst the wall, or in an immense oval psyche. There ate few chairs in these rooms—but num- bers of sumptuous ottomans, covered with velvet, are ranged around. These ottomans are so many large chests or boxes, the lids of which are made to lift up, cushion and all; and from the mye- terious depths of the interior Madame Angelique . the show-women produce the newest clegancies materials for ladies’ dresses. The show-women themselves are middle-aged persons, but dressed with the utmost taste and heatness—of affable and obliging mahners—and bearing the stamp of unquestionable respectability. Neither in the shop down stairs, nor im, the show- rooms, are any of the females very young or very yood-looking: so that if a somewhat particular lady, or an uxorious husband accompanying his wife, pay a visit to Madame Angehique’s cetablish- ment, nothing meets the eye to induce «a suspicion aa to fts perfect propriety. We should add that the g women themselvés in the work-room, weemed to have been chosen a8 much for their abeence of charms as, we may suppoee, for their ulness with the needle; and perhaps the door of cofhmunication between that room and the shop is mtentionally left open, to convince such straight-laced tady or particular husband accom. panying his wife, as those whom we have alluded to, that in every possible department of Madame Angelique’s business the fefnales employed are of modest detpeancur, as well as of an age and ap- pearance which may defy the breath of scandal. But then, Madame Angelique’s house is a very large one; and there are floors higher than the ehow-rooms. Most of Madame Angelique’s cus- tomers know that she is a widow, ahd that only two or three of her principal dependants live on the premises: What, then, does she do with all the upper part of her spacious house? If occasionally some carious old dowager or ingenuous young lady happens to put the question, Madame An- gelique, with one of her most amiable smiles, speaks of the immense stock of goods which she is constantly compelled to keep on hand—and thus promptly attributes a use and a purpose to all the up-stairs rooms which are not occupied by herself, her principal women, and her domestics. In short, Parisian fashion—such as bonnets, cape, and | after nevertheless bustling and active; and she thinks mo trouble too great to bestow tpon a customer. Indeed, her bearing is as urbane, her smile as complacent, and the expressions of her gratitade us great, towards a lady who merely drops in to buy a three-and-sixpenny riband or a half-guinea cap, as they are to another customer who leaves behind an order for a twenty-guinea dress. There is nothing obtrusive in her politeness: it is mea- sured to the utmost nicety. She will only press her goods to a certain point—and no farther: she will expatiate upon how much this or that article is sure to become the complexion of the particular customer with whom she is treating at the time— but she will not too persuasively force the said articles upon such customer. Thus she gives uni- versal satisfaction; and as for her bills, she only sends them in once a-year—about three months Ohristmas—remaining perfectly satisfied if they be liquidated any time before the ensuing Christmas. It were almost needless to add that she herself dresses with the most unexceptionable taste,—in a manner becoming her years, with the slightest dash of a Parisian coquetry—but yet so far removed from being oxtré that it is impossible to make her look ridiculous. She uses rouge and pearl-powder with so much skill, that only those ladies who are equally skilful in the mysteries of the toilet, could discern how much her complexion is indebted to those accessories; and her mnile reveals so admirable a set of teeth, that even the wearers of false ones themselves would find it diffi- cult to attribute Madame Angelique’s to the suc- cedaneous art of a renowned dentist in the same atrect. The tailor’s shop next door is as handsome in its own way as the Magasin of Madame An- gelique. It is the establishment of no cheap clothier: none of the exquisitely fashioned articles of raiment displayed in the window, are vulgarizsed by ticketed prices. M. Bertin—for the tailor is a Frenchman, as Madame Angelique is a French- woman—would scorn the idea of selling pantaloons at sixteon shillings, surtouts at two guineas, and paletots at twoten. No suit of clothes is sent out from his establishment under seven guineas. His name ig in gilt letters over the shop-front—in brass letters ingeniously stuck on to the middle pane of plate-glass—and repeated on 8 braas-plate on the shop-door. Everything looks business-like and respectable—yes, and wealthy also, at M. Bertin’s; and if a passer-by glances up at the windows on the drawing-room or higher floors, he beholds rich draperies and the tops of gilt back chairs, all indicative of the sumptuous interior of M. Bertin’s habitation. As for M. Bertin himeelf, he is a short, middle-aged man—very active and very obsequious—tolerably good-looking for his the establishment of which we are speaking, has | years—exquisitely dressed—making a large display | (COL (C DOO CS (COL