The Arcades Project - Operi

Lecomte on the fashion correspondent Constance Aubert, who had an important
position at Le Temps, and whose articles were paid for with deliveries of fashionable
items from the houses about which she had written: ·"The pen becomes a true
source of capital which, day by day, can fix the amount of revenue one wishes to
obtain. All of Paris becomes a bazaar where nothing escapes the hand that reaches
for it. It's already been quite a while since this hand was extended. H Jules
Lecomte, Les Lett,.es de Van Engelgom, ed. Henri d'Almeras (Paris, 1925),
p. 190. Lecomte's letters first appeared in 1837 in the lndependant of Brussels.
[08a,lJ
"It is hy the tendency of the mind caned reminiscence that the wishes of the man
condemned to the glittering captivity of cities incline . . . toward a stay in the
country, toward his original abode, or at least toward the possession of a simple,
tranquil garden. His eyes aspire to rest on some greenery, sufficiently far away
from the stresses of the shop counter or the intrusive rays of the living room lamp.
His sense of smell, continually assaulted by pestilent emanations, longs for the
scent of flowers. A border of modest and mild violets would altogether ravish his
senses . ... This happiness . .. denied him, he would push the illusion so far as to
transform the ledge of his window into a hanging garden, and the mantelpiece of
his unassuming parlor into an enamel bed of blossoms and leaves. Such is the man
of the city, and such is the source of his passion for the flowers of the fields . ...
These reflections induced me to set up a number of looms on which I had weavers
make designs imitating the flowers of nature . ... The demand for these kinds of
shawls was enormous . ... They were sold before being made; the orders for their
delivery streamed in . ... This brilliant period of shawls, this golden age of manu-
facture . .. did not last long, yet in France it resulted in a virtual goldmine, from
which flowed wealth that was all the more considerable in that its main source was
foreign. Along with the fact of this remarkable demand, it may be of interest . .. to
know in what manner it generally propagated itself. Just as I had expected, Paris
bought up very few shawls with natural flowers represented on them. It was the
provinces that demanded these shawls, in proportion to their distance from the
capital; and foreign countries, in proportion to their distance from France. And
their reign is not yet over. I still supply countries all across Europe, where there is
hardly a chance for a shawl of cashmere hearing artificial designs . ... On the hasis
of what Paris did not do in the case of shawls with natural-flower designs, . . .
couldn't. one conclude, recognizing Paris as the real center of taste, that the farther
one gets from this dty, the closer one comes to natural inclinat.ions and feelings;
or, in other words, that taste and naturalness have, in this (ase, nothing in
common-and are even mutually exclusiveT' J. Rey, Manufacturer of Cashmere
Shawls, Etudes pour servir a l'histoir'e des chilies (Paris, 1823), pp. 201-202,
204-206. The copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale contains, on the frontispiece, an
inscription by an early reader: "This treatise on a seemingly trivial subject . .. is
remarkable for the purity and elegance of its style, as well as for an erudition
worthy of Allarcharsis." [08a,2J