Noblesse oblige

Everyone knows that all the Irish are descended from kings, so I can be said to be of noble blood myself. However, I had never met any modern aristocrats until I moved to Europe. I had the false idea that they had died out, like the dodo or the Merovingians.

The British aristos are the hardest to discover at first glance. The young ones self-consciously talk in the new "estuary English" accent and introduce themselves using only their first names.  The Germans are named von something, but it is the style not to mention it: "Hello, I am Freddy Shoeboot," they will say, rather than "Count Friedrich von Shoeboot." In general, the German nobility is unpretentious, polite and egalitarian. They have names like Butzi, Dolly, and Missy.  That doesn't mean they would marry you, though...oh no.

The French aristos are hard for a foreigner to distinguish because for generations people have tried to infiltrate their ranks. A de can be a roturier (commoner--as in De Gaulle, Honoré de Balzac, and Giscard d'Estaing); and I once met a man with the shortest, plainest name who was introduced as "Charles, who has sixteen quarters of nobility!" (To his credit, he was mortified.)

The old aristocracy looks down on the less old... and by that, I mean that people whose ancestors were nobles during the Crusades (noblesse de l'épée, aristocracy of the sword) look down on the bourgeois ennobled during the Renaissance, and those in turn are haughty toward the titles given by Napoleon. I read an interview in which a well-known Frenchwoman described how her family's lands had never been "monnayés" since the family's origins in Carolingian times; her current partner was another aristocrat, "other people don't understand us." One of my friends is poor, or at least I think so-- you never know because the old aristos don't feel any need to show off-- but her fathers' fathers have had the right to ride a horse into church since the Middle Ages. The right only holds if they exercise it once a year, so every May, her father does actually ride a horse into church.

My friend firmly looks down on French nouveaux riches (in which she classes the Napoleonic nobility). She told me she likes Americans better because they're honest about where they come from-- Americans usually admit that their ancestors were peasants, but the French version pretends they don't know, or worse, invents a particule (de, des, de la, etc.).

I have come to feel fond of French aristocrats. In my experience, they are more welcoming, politer, and less snobbish to foreigners than the bourgeoisie. Maybe they don't feel the need to keep up pretences. I have also noticed that at a French school, charity or church, a really disproportionate number of the volunteers are aristocrats. Noblesse oblige!

Comments

[maitresse]

It's true that a particule doesn't immediately indicate noble origins. But with two or more, you can generally be sure you're dealing with the real thing.

And when you Google your new boyfriend's entire family name (i.e. ___ Le ___ de ___ ___ ___ de ___) and you find out their family basically owned one of the French départements for centuries, you made be very sure his mother, when you meet her, will take one look at you and dismiss "cette juive, cette américaine", and you may then expect your momma's boy to break up with you soon after. So best to not lose your heart to an aristo when your most illustrious forebear was the rabbi of his shtetl.

and besides, the chateaux des provinces are infested with flying beasties.

[ChrisLate]

As someone who always enjoys trying to learn about the idiosyncrasies of French life, I thank you for this interesting, amusing lesson (and for Maitresse's caution). Since I'm across the ocean, my experience is limited. When I think of French aristos, I remember those in Henry James's THE AMERICAN, and I shrivel.

[MissH]

They may seem less snobbish to your face, but don't believe for a second that they don't look down on you when you turn your back. They are mostly not wealthy though they are extremely proficient at portraying a specific type of nonchalance that makes it hard to tell if you don't know (they may appreciate that Americans are honest about their origins but they disdain the American ideal of pursuing wealth). They usually have chateaux or properties that have been passed on from generation to generation and at present are in various states of disrepair. The fact that you see many of them volunteering has to do with the Catholic tradition (the very same which inspires disdain of the American pursuit of wealth). And for the record I am not American, I am French and have actually made matches (accidentally) by putting some of these people of "noblesse de l'épée" together at parties and therefore have been party to some of their weddings, heathen though I may be (and that was an interesting experience), and I can guarantee you that they are every bit as snobbish and insecure (thus the fact that they prefer Americans who don't challenge them for an instant by being able to claim any similar origins) for the most part as you might imagine them to be (though of course there is the occasional bonne pomme among them too). The Revolution was over 200 years ago and they still can't get over the fact that nobody cares who they are anymore.