Pre-WWI Social Etiquette in France

Soldiers and others at “Restaurant Port-Blanc” in France, at some time during, or after, WWI – 

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SOCIAL LIFE IN FRANCE

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Women Equal Partners – With the Men In All Amusements

Frenchmen cannot live alone; there must always be an Eve in their paradise. The bachelor party, which is a common feature in English social life, is unthinkable in France. How can men enjoy themselves without women? Woman is their enjoyment. It is only the cold Englishman who wants to leave his wife at home while he banquets or plays golf. 

The Frenchman’s first essays in the royal and ancient game are always accompanied by a feminine retinue his wife, his aunt and his mother-in-law. It is only when he makes progress in the game and realizes the niceties of its etiquette that he consents to separate himself for an hour or two from feminine society. Unless he plays advanced golf he will always prefer his wife's society on the links to that of a man.

That is why club life is impossible in Paris except club life of a special sort, involving baccarat for high stakes and appealing to a rich and leisured class. Yet in this case compensations are offered to the offended goddess momentarily abandoned while her husband goes to the “tripot.” 

She is invited to weekly theatrical entertainments at the club-entertainments provided for, by the way, by the card, money squandered by the men. And the exhibitions of all sorts that flourishes at the clubs nearly every one has some artistic mission are so many оссаsions for the mingling of the sexes.– From "France and the French," by Charles Dawbarn, 1911

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