bumpkins, and, people who have never been in good company; but it requires great attention to, and a scrupulous observation of ‘les bienseances’:  whatever one ought to do, is to be done with ease and unconcern; whatever is improper must not be done at all.  In mixed companies also, different ages and sexes are to be differently addressed.  You would not talk of your pleasures to men of a certain age, gravity, and dignity; they justly expect from young people a degree of deference and regard.  You should be full as easy with them as with people of your own years:  but your manner must be different; more respect must be implied; and it is not amiss to insinuate that from them you expect to learn.  It flatters and comforts age for not being able to take a part in the joy and titter of youth.  To women you should always address yourself with great outward respect and attention, whatever you feel inwardly; their sex is by long prescription entitled to it; and it is among the duties of ‘bienseance’; at the same time that respect is very properly and very agreeably mixed with a degree of ‘enjouement’, if you have it; but then, that badinage must either directly or indirectly tend to their praise, and even not be liable to a malicious construction to their disadvantage.  But here, too, great attention must be had to the difference of age, rank, and situation.  A ‘marechale’ of fifty must not be played with like a young coquette of fifteen; respect and serious ‘enjouement’, if I may couple those two words, must be used with the former, and mere ‘badinage, zeste meme d’un peu de polissonerie’, is pardonable with the latter.

Another important point of ‘les bienseances’, seldom enough attended to, is, not to run your own present humor and disposition indiscriminately against everybody, but to observe, conform to, and adopt them.  For example, if you happened to be in high good humor and a flow of spirits, would you go and sing a ’pont neuf’,—­[a ballad]—­or cut a caper, to la Marechale de Coigny, the Pope’s nuncio, or Abbe Sallier, or to any person of natural gravity and melancholy, or who at that time should be in grief?  I believe not; as, on the other hand, I suppose, that if you were in low spirits or real grief, you would not choose to bewail your situation with ‘la petite Blot’.  If you cannot command your present humor and disposition, single out those to converse with, who happen to be in the humor the nearest to your own.

Loud laughter is extremely inconsistent with ‘les bienseances’, as it is only the illiberal and noisy testimony of the joy of the mob at some very silly thing.  A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.  Nothing is more contrary to ‘les bienseances’ than horse-play, or ’jeux de main’ of any kind whatever, and has often very serious, sometimes very fatal consequences.  Romping, struggling, throwing things at one another’s head, are the becoming pleasantries of the mob, but degrade a gentleman:  ‘giuoco di mano, giuoco di villano’, is a very true saying, among the few true sayings of the Italians.