French Floral Etiquette for Fiancés

In France, the lover as a rule endeavors to send his fiancée each day a basket or bouquet of white flowers– In the mid-1800’s, Americans adopted the French terms for those engaged to be married; A fiancé is a man engaged to be married and a fiancée is a woman engaged to be married. These two terms soon became part of American culture. 

Flowers From a Fiancé

Here is a custom of France which it would be well for our American young girls to reflect upon— and to encourage. It is to receive presents of flowers only, even from a fiancé. If the engagement should be broken — as engagements sometimes are, you know there can be no horrible entanglement about the return of gifts. Flowers are perishable. They die with the day, but while they last they are capable of affording exquisite pleasure and gratification. 

In France, the lover as a rule endeavors to send to his fiancée each day a basket or bouquet of white flowers. And as the supply is bound to meet the demand, there are florists who make a business of engagement flowers. There one discovers, a special etiquette about the way in which, the white satin ribbon is tied on to them— a true lover’s knot, of course — and we learn that the present prevailing mode is a basket of white flowers tied with white ribbon and veiled in white tulle. Very sweet and pretty and dainty, no doubt, but to us Americans rather suggestive of a baby’s funeral. We will take our flowers colored, if you please— and never mind the ribbons or the tulle. – San Francisco Call, 1894

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Of French Manners and Customs

Professor Barrett Wendell‘s scholarship has been shown in his college lectures and in noteworthy books– “English Composition,” “Life of Cotton Mather” and “Shakespeare, a Study in Elizabethan Literature.” It may be added that Professor Wendell will deliver two courses of lectures at the University of California, one on Elizabethan literature and the other on English composition.

Society in France

Professor Barrett Wendell, who was the first American lecturer at the French Universities, will have in the April Scribner, a discussion of “The Structure of Society in France.” It gives an account of French manners and customs, and the reasons for them. Professor Wendell’s point of view is that of a sympathetic admirer of the French people. 

He says: “The more you see of the French, the more deeply you are impressed not only with the general regularity of their lives, but with the surprising fact that this general regularity seems to have a very strong hold on their affections.” – San Francisco Call, 1907

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

19th C. French Etiquette Customs

"Bad table manners, my dear Gigi, have broken up more households than infidelity." ~ Aunt Alicia instructing Gigi on how to properly eat ortolan.

The etiquette in the best old families of France as regards young girls is very strict, says a foreign correspondent, and at 17 they begin to be seen at their mothers' “at homes,” but at 18 only they make their debut in society, beginning with the opera, Lenten receptions, and what are now generally called “bals blancs.” 

The French girl never has any cards of her own; when she is what they call in England “out” her name is written below her mother's. The letters addressed to her are always delivered first to her parent's hands, who passes them to her opened or unopened, as she thinks fit. 

She wears no jewels beyond one row of pearls around her neck. She rides early before the fashionable hour at the Bois, escorted by her father; her brother may take her out driving, and she is even permitted now to take the reins, a liberty which ten years ago would have stamped her as outrageously fast. French girls of almost any rank, including the bourgeoisie, never walk out alone. They marry young, presumably before 20. —  Marin Journal, 1887

Etiquette Enthusiast,Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Etiquette and French Civilitiés

Swallowing wine too rapidly, one may choke himself, “which is impolite and inconvenient.” 

In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in France there were books which gave the rules of conduct. These books of etiquette were known as the Civilitiés. They are occupied to a great extent with the civilities of the table, and one may see in them precisely how Paris dined in the 17th and 18th centuries.

At the close of the 17th century it still seemed necessary to remind the host he must not chastise his servants at table, and the guest that if he swallows his wine too rapidly he may choke himself, "which is impolite and inconvenient." According to the Civilités you sat down to table with your hat on, removing it only if your health is toasted "by a person of quality." And how, we wonder, did they judge these "persons of quality"? 

Every Civilité of the 17th and 18th centuries enjoins you to go to dinner with your hands clean. Apparently there is only one towel, for the Civilité requests that "a dry corner be left for the person who is to use it afterward." 

Furthermore the Civilité extorts the man of polish not to scratch himself in company, not to snuff the candle with his fingers, not to blow in his soup, not to return the meat to the dish after smelling it, not to talk with his mouthful, not to pocket the fruit at dessert. These rules of conduct give us an excellent insight into what social life must have been like in the 17th century. Civilités warned the people only against those things they actually did, those habits and customs which actually existed. — Lillian Eichler 

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia