The oyster-woman, too, is a highly important personage. Paris consumes three hundred million oysters a year, and the dispensing of these bivalves keeps the lady in question sufficiently active whilst the season lasts. At breakfast-time or dinner-time, with a white napkin thrust in her girdle, a knife in her hand, and a smile on her lips, she is to be seen stationed at the entrance to restaurants in anticipation of the waiter rushing out and shouting: “One dozen,” “Two dozen,” or “Ten dozen—open!” A police ordinance of September 25th, 1771, forbade oyster-women to exercise their trade between the last day of April and the 10th of September, under penalty of a fine of 200 francs and the confiscation of their stock. This ordinance was destined to fall into disuse; but inasmuch as the prohibited months are those in which oysters are at their worst, the écaillères of Paris do in fact to-day suspend their trade during May, June, July, and August—months which they devote to the sale of sugared barley-water and other cooling beverages.
In Paris a sempstress is supposed to be “gentille,” a lingère, or getter-up of linen, “aimable,” a flower-girl “pretty.” The oyster-woman, although not characterised by any one particular quality, is credited with a combination of qualities in a more or less modified degree. Without being in her first youth, she is young; without being in the bloom of beauty, she does not lack personal charm; and frequently she invests even the opening of oysters with a grace which may well excite admiration. La belle écaillère is indeed the name traditionally applied to her. With the origin of this name a tragic story is associated.
There was once a charmingly pretty oyster-girl named Louise Leroux, known as La belle écaillère. She had a lover named Montreuil, a fireman, who, in a moment of frantic jealousy, plunged his sword into her breast. This horrible crime at once rendered “the beautiful oyster-girl” famous, not only in Paris, but throughout Europe; and in due time the legend of her life and love took dramatic form, and found its way to the stage. The interest excited in her unhappy end was all the greater inasmuch as her murderer had eluded justice by flying to England, where, in London, he set up as a fencing master. The Gaieté Theatre achieved, in 1837, one of its greatest successes by putting on the boards, under the title of La Belle Écaillère, the tragic history of Louise Leroux.
Since then the name has been familiarly applied without discrimination to the female oyster-sellers of Paris, many of whom have well deserved it. But while bearing the name, they have abandoned the traditional fireman, as rather too dangerous a commodity. In lieu of firemen they have captivated notaries, financiers, and others in superior stations of life; whilst one is known to have turned the head of a state minister, who, even if he did not marry her, confessed the passion with which she inspired him by devouring thirty-two dozen of her oysters every morning before breakfast. The flame within him had first been excited by the siren’s ready wit. As he was entering a restaurant one day, a friend who accompanied him remarked: “To-day, my dear sir, more than ever, France dances on a volcano.” “What nonsense!” cried the écaillère; “she dances on a heap of oysters!” Next day the exclamation was reported in a Paris journal, which easily turned it to political account.
Old and New Paris (Vol. 2) : Its History Its People And its Places, The Circus in Paris, The French Servant, Parisian Characteristics, Nicolas Cop and Calvin, Lycées and Collèges, THE RIVER BIÈVRE
In Paris a sempstress is supposed to be “gentille,” a lingère, or getter-up of linen, “aimable,” a flower-girl “pretty.” The oyster-woman, although not characterised by any one particular quality, is credited with a combination of qualities in a more or less modified degree. Without being in her first youth, she is young; without being in the bloom of beauty, she does not lack personal charm; and frequently she invests even the opening of oysters with a grace which may well excite admiration. La belle écaillère is indeed the name traditionally applied to her. With the origin of this name a tragic story is associated.
There was once a charmingly pretty oyster-girl named Louise Leroux, known as La belle écaillère. She had a lover named Montreuil, a fireman, who, in a moment of frantic jealousy, plunged his sword into her breast. This horrible crime at once rendered “the beautiful oyster-girl” famous, not only in Paris, but throughout Europe; and in due time the legend of her life and love took dramatic form, and found its way to the stage. The interest excited in her unhappy end was all the greater inasmuch as her murderer had eluded justice by flying to England, where, in London, he set up as a fencing master. The Gaieté Theatre achieved, in 1837, one of its greatest successes by putting on the boards, under the title of La Belle Écaillère, the tragic history of Louise Leroux.
Since then the name has been familiarly applied without discrimination to the female oyster-sellers of Paris, many of whom have well deserved it. But while bearing the name, they have abandoned the traditional fireman, as rather too dangerous a commodity. In lieu of firemen they have captivated notaries, financiers, and others in superior stations of life; whilst one is known to have turned the head of a state minister, who, even if he did not marry her, confessed the passion with which she inspired him by devouring thirty-two dozen of her oysters every morning before breakfast. The flame within him had first been excited by the siren’s ready wit. As he was entering a restaurant one day, a friend who accompanied him remarked: “To-day, my dear sir, more than ever, France dances on a volcano.” “What nonsense!” cried the écaillère; “she dances on a heap of oysters!” Next day the exclamation was reported in a Paris journal, which easily turned it to political account.
Old and New Paris (Vol. 2) : Its History Its People And its Places, The Circus in Paris, The French Servant, Parisian Characteristics, Nicolas Cop and Calvin, Lycées and Collèges, THE RIVER BIÈVRE
