The cover image has been fabricated and is placed in the public domain.
BY Mme. CELNART.
TRANSLATED FROM THE SIXTH PARIS EDITION,
ENLARGED AND IMPROVED.
BOSTON.
ALLEN AND TICKNOR,
AND
CARTER, HENDEE & CO
1833.
[p ii]
Entered according to Act of Congress,the year 1833, by Allen and Ticknor, in theClerk’s office of the District Court of the Districtof Massachusetts.
BOSTON:
Kane and Co......127 Washington Street.
The present work has had an extensive circulationin France, the country which we areaccustomed to consider as the genial soil ofpoliteness; and the publishers have thoughtit would be rendering a useful service on thisside of the Atlantic to issue a translation of it.
Some foreign visitors in our country, whoseown manners have not always given them aright to be censors of others, have very freelytold us what we ought not to do; and it willbe useful to know from respectable authority,what is done in polished society in Europe,and, of course, what we ought to do, in orderto avoid all just censure. This object, we are[p iv] confident, will be more effectually accomplishedby the study of the principles and rulescontained in the present volume, than by anyother of the kind.
By persons who are deemed competentjudges in such a case, this little work has beenpronounced to be one of the most useful andpractical works extant upon the numerous anddelicate topics which are discussed in it. Weare aware, that a man can no more acquirethe ease and elegance of a finished gentleman,by any manual of this kind, than in the finearts he could become a skilful painter or sculptorby studying books alone, without practice.It is, however, equally true, that the principlesof Politeness may be studied, as well as theprinciples of the arts. At the same time, intercoursewith polite society, in other words,practice, as in the case of the arts, must do therest.
The reader will find in this volume some[p v] rules founded on customs and usages peculiarto France and other countries, where the RomanCatholic religion is established. But itwas thought better to retain them in the work,than to mutilate it, by making such materialalterations as would have been occasioned byexpunging every thing of that description. Inour liberal and tolerant country, these peculiaritieswill give offence to none; while tomany, their novelty,