Annick Paternoster - Historical Etiquette - Etiquette Books in Nineteenth-Century Western Cultures-Palgrave Macmillan (2022)

Historical Etiquette
Etiquette Books in Nineteenth-Century

Western Cultures
Annick Paternoster
“Annick Paternoster’s book is a timely, insightful and accessible contribution to

the field of historical politeness research. Paternoster provides a fascinating
insight into the realm of etiquette manuals in Europe, which is an important
albeit regretfully neglected area of politeness research. The book is a must read
for both academics and students with interest in the history of social interaction
in Europe”.
—Dániel Z. Kádár, Ordinary Member of Academia Europaea,
Chair Professor, Dalian University of Foreign Languages, China, Research
Professor, Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Hungary
“This book sheds light on a past that countless novels, films and TV series have
popularized: the world of nineteenth-century polite society, of dinners, recep-
tions and dances, where the social skills of men and women were crucial for the
establishment and maintenance of their place in society. That world obeyed
strictly codified rules of appropriate behaviour—rules that the author investi-
gates in a broad range of Italian, French, Dutch, British and American texts
while placing them in accurate socio-historical perspective”.
—Marina Dossena, University of Bergamo, Italy
Annick Paternoster
Etiquette Books in Nineteenth-
Century Western Cultures
Annick Paternoster
Istituto di studi italiani
Università della Svizzera italiana
Lugano, Switzerland
ISBN 978-3-031-07577-3 ISBN 978-3-031-07578-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07578-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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Acknowledgements
This book is very much a product of continuous COVID-19 lockdowns

that affected the United Kingdom in 2020 and 2021. When the pan-
demic halted normal life, I decided to fill the disposable time by reading
up on a long list of book titles that had grabbed my attention during a
four-year research project on Italian etiquette and conduct books funded
by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Once I had worked my way
through a perfectly rewarding reading list, I decided to put it to good use
and write a book proposal, the fruit of which, reader, is now in your hands.
I owe a big thank you to my family, who was near me when the initial
idea took shape and have been very supportive throughout. I specifically
thank Emma and Louis Schilders for giving me feedback on how the next
generation understands contemporary etiquette.
On an institutional level, I would like to express my gratitude to Marco
Maggi, Director of the Master in Lingua, letteratura e civiltà italiana at
the Istituto di studi italiani, University of Lugano, who granted me a
break from teaching my course on Retorica e stilistica. I especially thank
my Lugano colleagues, Linda Bisello, Francesca Berlinzani and Chiara
Cauzzi, for remaining close to me, even when 950 miles away. A big
compliment goes to the staff of the BUL, Biblioteca universitaria Lugano:
they were always punctual in assisting me, and distance was never an
issue. Last but not least, a sincere thank you to Johan Verbeke, author of
Diplomacy in Practice (Routledge, 2022), Senior Fellow of Egmont—the
v
vi Acknowledgements
Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels and former Belgian

Ambassador to the United Kingdom and the United States, for multiple
conversations on etiquette and diplomatic skills and his comments on
Chap. 8. All remaining errors are mine.
The cover illustration is an illustration of a scene from La Petite by
Édouard Cadol, French author of theatre plays and novels (1831-1898).
I was not able to verify the story behind the image, but I like to think that
the woman is excited about entering the room where a ball or an evening
entertainment is taking place. She seems slightly insecure, considering
she has her right arm, as well as her left hand, on her partner’s, maybe
looking for support. The interplay of excitement and anxiety shows the
multiple effects etiquette can bring about....
Contents
1 I ntroduction 1
1.1 An Etiquette Revival 1
1.2 Etiquette Studies 8
1.3 Politeness Studies and Research Methods 11
1.4 Outline of the Book 21
References 27
2 E
tiquette Books 33
2.1 Introduction 33
2.2 Courtesy Books and Conduct Books 34
2.2.1 Courtesy Books 35
2.2.2 Conduct Books 38
2.3 Etiquette Books, Social Class and Women Arbiters 44
2.4 Etiquette Books as a Product 52
2.4.1 France 53
2.4.2 The United Kingdom 58
2.4.3 The United States 61
2.4.4 The Netherlands 64
2.4.5 Italy 67
2.4.6 Conclusion 69
vii
viii Contents
2.5 A Self-built Digital Corpus of Etiquette Books 72

2.5.1 The French Corpus 74
2.5.2 The UK-English Corpus 80
2.5.3 The US-English Corpus 82
2.5.4 The Dutch Corpus 83
2.5.5 The Italian Corpus 83
2.6 Conclusion 83
References 84
3 D
efining Etiquette 97
3.1 Introduction 97
3.2 Etiquette and Politeness 99
3.2.1 A First Distinction 100
3.2.2 Politeness in Conduct Books 104
3.2.3 Politeness in Etiquette Books: On Varnish and
Veneer107
3.3 Definitions of Etiquette 114
3.3.1 The Customary Aspect 115
3.3.2 The Normative Aspect 116
3.3.3 The Gatekeeping Aspect 118
3.3.4 The Educational Aspect 121
3.3.5 Conclusion 122
3.4 Synonymy and Collocations of ‘Etiquette’ in
My Self-built Corpus 123
3.4.1 The US-English Corpus 124
3.4.2 The UK-English Corpus 126
3.4.3 The Dutch Corpus 127
3.4.4 The French Corpus 130
3.4.5 The Italian Corpus 133
3.5 Conclusion 135
References137
Contents ix
4 The
Origin of Etiquette143
4.1 Introduction 143
4.2 ‘Etiquette’ in Historical Corpora 145
4.2.1 US Data 146
4.2.2 UK Data 149
4.2.3 Dutch Data 151
4.2.4 French Data 154
4.2.5 Italian Data 159
4.3 ‘Etiquette’ in Dictionaries 164
4.3.1 French Dictionaries 164
4.3.2 Italian Dictionaries 167
4.3.3 Dutch Dictionaries 169
4.3.4 English Dictionaries 171
4.4 Court Etiquette 175
4.5 Conclusion 184
References185
5 S
cripts and Lines191
5.2 The Circumstances of Etiquette 195
5.3 On Choreographies and Scripts 200
5.4 The Drawing-Room Script 207
5.5 The Dining-Room Script 211
5.6 The Ball-Room Script 217
5.7 Script Lines 220
5.8 Conclusion 225
References227
6 B
lunders235
6.2 Fear of Embarrassment 238
6.3 Debutants and Debutantes 244
6.4 Parvenus 249
6.5 Language Blunders 257
x Contents
6.6 Destructive Rituals 261

6.7 Ease and Tact 265
6.8 Conclusion 272
References274
7 P
recedence281
7.2 The Lesson of the Beef 285
7.3 Precedence and the Law 291
7.4 Precedence Scripts 294
7.4.1 Dining-Room Precedence 294
7.4.2 Drawing-Room Precedence 303
7.4.3 Ball-Room Precedence 307
7.4.4 Carriage Precedence 309
7.4.5 Riding Precedence 312
7.4.6 Promenade Precedence 313
7.4.7 Greeting Precedence 314
7.4.8 Introduction Precedence 316
7.4.9 Handshaking Precedence 316
7.4.10 Letter Writing: Expressing Deference 318
7.5 Conclusion 325
References329
8 C
oncluding Remarks337
8.2 Etiquette and Inclusivity 340
8.3 Etiquette and Morality 346
8.4 Etiquette Organisation 348
8.5 Etiquette and Unease 351
8.6 Conclusion 355
References356
R
eferences359
I ndex389
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Title page (Breton de la Martinière 1808). Reproduced from

gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France 55
Fig. 3.1 Title page (Nogent, Mme de 1886). Reproduced from
gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France 100
Fig. 3.2 Word Cloud showing the top 40 hits in the Sketch Engine
Thesaurus for the noun ‘etiquette’ in the US-English corpus 125
Fig. 3.3 Word Sketch in Sketch Engine for the noun ‘etiquette’ in the
US-English corpus 126
Thesaurus for the noun ‘etiquette’ in the UK-English corpus 127
UK-English corpus 128
Thesaurus for the noun etiquette in the Dutch corpus 129
Fig. 3.7 Word Sketch in Sketch Engine for the noun etiquette in the
Dutch corpus 130
Fig. 3.8 Word cloud showing the top 40 hits in the Sketch Engine
Thesaurus for the noun étiquette in the French corpus 131
Fig. 3.9 Word cloud showing the top 40 hits in the Sketch Engine
Thesaurus for the noun savoir-vivre in the French corpus 132
Fig. 3.10 Word Sketch in Sketch Engine for the noun étiquette in the
French corpus 133
xi
xii List of Figures
Thesaurus for the noun etichetta in the Italian corpus 134
Fig. 3.12 Word Sketch in Sketch Engine for the noun etichetta in the
Italian corpus 134
Fig. 4.1 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ in American English (2012) (Google
Books Ngram Viewer) 147
Fig. 4.2 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ (per million words) across 20
decades from 1820s to 2010s (COHA) 148
Fig. 4.3 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ in British English (2012) (Google
Books Ngram Viewer) 149
Fig. 4.4 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ (per million words) across nine
quarter centuries from 1700 to 1924 (CLMET3.1) 150
Fig. 4.5 Relative frequency of etiquette and etikette in Dutch from
1500 to 2022 (DBNL Ngram Viewer) 152
Fig. 4.6 Frequency of étiquette in French (2012) (Google Books
Ngram Viewer) 155
Fig. 4.7 Frequency of étiquette (per million words) across 34 decades
from the 1580s to the 1910s (Frantext) 156
Fig. 4.8 Title page (Aulnoy, Baronne d’ 1691). Reproduced from
Google Books UK 157
Fig. 4.9 Frequency of etichetta in Italian (2012) (Google Books
Ngram Viewer) 159
Fig. 5.1 Les visites ‘visits’ (Orval, baronne de 19016: 93). Illustration
by M. Chatelaine, reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr /
Bibliothèque nationale de France 197
Fig. 5.2 The procession (Orval, Baronne d’ 19016: 168). Illustration
by M. Chatelaine, reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr /
Bibliothèque nationale de France 214
Fig. 5.3 Le bal de société ‘the society ball’ (Boitard 1862/1851: 13).
Reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de
France217
Fig. 7.1 French table setting with numbered seating plan according
to precedence (G.-M. 1908: 42–43). Reproduced from
Gallica.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France 302
Fig. 7.2 À pied, à cheval et en voiture ‘walking, riding, driving’ (Burani
1879: 115), reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque
nationale de France 311
Fig. 7.3 Street Etiquette (Houghton et al. 18837/1882: 94).
Reproduced from Internet.archive and Smithsonian Libraries 315
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Popular US etiquette Twitter accounts with Twitter handle

and number of followers (numbers correct as per 7.2.2022) 4
Table 2.1 Word count and number of books, in the subcorpora and in
total74
Table 2.2 The French corpus 75
Table 2.3 The UK-English corpus 77
Table 2.4 The US-English corpus 79
Table 2.5 The Dutch corpus 81
Table 2.6 The Italian corpus 82
Table 4.1 Overall occurrences of etichetta and occurrences of etichetta
‘label’, per time slot (DiaCORIS) 161
Table 5.1 Topics in etiquette books containing max. 11 different
chapters195
xiii
1
Introduction
1.1 An Etiquette Revival

Advice on good manners is popular in periods of change and uncertainty.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic forms no exception. The initial stages
sparked numerous online articles on the ‘end’ of the handshake and eti-
quette websites were quick to provide advice for physical distancing. Once
the virus appeared under control, they started publishing guidance on the
safe return of the handshake. Advice on the etiquette of virtual meetings
(‘Zoom etiquette’) was available before the pandemic, but became more
visible when remote working put an end to face-to-face meetings.
Obviously, it is not the Coronavirus that kickstarted a renewed interest in
etiquette. In 2018, for example, Meghan Markle’s rumoured pre-wedding
etiquette lessons exposed young people to the topic, many for the first
time. The 2021 Netflix success, the television period drama Bridgerton,
relied heavily on etiquette (breaches) for plot advances, and cast members
took part in a behind-the-scenes video on Regency etiquette.1 For a few
years now, I have started my master’s course with a 90-minute ‘tour’ of
1
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zU0jT3XqcA, accessed 24.5.2022.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

A. Paternoster, Historical Etiquette, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07578-0_1
2 A. Paternoster
the online presence of etiquette. My students and I never fail to be sur-

prised at the sheer amount of etiquette guidance available on Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, even on TikTok, not to mention the multi-
tude of blogs and podcasts. Etiquette coaching, manuals for business and
international etiquette, besides articles in glossy magazines show the eco-
nomic clout of etiquette. Introducing the presence of today’s etiquette
poses only one problem, really, the embarras du choix.
American etiquette authors lead the way. An unavoidable presence is
The Emily Post Institute. Its website www.emilypost.com (accessed
24.5.2022) is run by the descendants of Emily Post, the unrivalled US
etiquette authority and writer of the 1922 Etiquette in Society, in Business,
in Politics and At Home (now in its 19th edition), which celebrates its
centenary anniversary this year. The website provides numerous articles
providing free etiquette advice on gifting, tea traditions around the world,
texting at the dinner table, and on less ‘frivolous’ topics such as Bullying,
Cyberbullying, Job Interview Tips 101, Post-Pandemic Etiquette,
Funerals and Bereavement and so on. The articles are grouped around 12
etiquette topics, from traditional items such as wedding, dining, funeral
etiquette, invitation writing, receiving guests, to more innovative items
such as business and digital etiquette. The Institute offers weekly podcasts
called ‘Awesome Etiquette’: there are almost 400 episodes, each ca. an
hour long. With so much free material, what is the business model? The
Emily Post Institute promotes the sale of 25 etiquette guides; it provides
training seminars and consultancy services, whilst it also trains etiquette
coaches. This is a recurring set-up: companies specialising in etiquette
profile themselves as etiquette academies and make money by providing
tuition and consultancy. A few are also publishers. In the UK, traditional
etiquette publishers are Debrett’s and Burke’s. Debrett’s has a well-devel-
oped website, https://debretts.com/ (accessed 24.5.2022). It was founded
with the publication of The New Peerage (1769), a precedence list often
cited in Victorian etiquette books, which is still commercialised today
(for its latest paper edition see Morris 2019), now also as an online sub-
scription database. In the nineteenth century John Debrett’s Peerage was
competing with John Burke’s Peerage. The latter was first published in
1826 (Burke 1826), with its most recent instalment being issued in 2011
(Goldstraw and Duncan 2011). While Burke’s has not diversified,
1 Introduction 3
Debrett’s sells other etiquette guides; however, its main revenue comes
from etiquette coaching. Some etiquette bloggers, like Candace Smith,
use their blog to publicise courses. The blogger Maura J. Graber, who
runs the Etiquipedia website (https://etiquipedia.blogspot.com/, accessed
24.5.2022), is an expert in Gilded Age etiquette and a consultant for the
new TV series The Gilded Age, produced by Sky/HBO and written by
Julian Fellowes, known from the successful series Downton Abbey. Patricia
Rossi is a published author and keynote speaker. Other etiquette roles are
less visible: etiquette coaches train front-of-house staff, in hotel schools or
in luxury hotels.
US and Britain are the countries where etiquette experts have the most
visible online presence. But other countries are catching up. The French
École de Savoir-Vivre ‘school of etiquette’ organises courses for profes-
sionals and the general public.2 In Switzerland you can find the tradi-
tional model of the finishing school,3 next to more innovative businesses,
like the Accademia Svizzera Etiquette e Buone Maniere ‘Swiss academy
for etiquette and good manners’,4 which caters for professionals and the
general public, including teenagers and children. Belgian etiquette nov-
ices can book courses at De Etiquetterie, a teaching academy run by
Brigitte Balfoort, well-published etiquette author and royal correspon-
dent for the Flemish commercial TV channel VTM. In the Netherlands
there is Het Etiquette Bureau.5 Finally, in Italy, the Accademia Italiana
Galateo ‘Italian conduct academy’ runs basic courses and advanced ones,
the latter in collaboration with the Università La Sapienza, of Rome.6
As far as I am aware, the Emily Post Institute and Debrett’s have the
most elaborate websites to promote their business, but many etiquette
coaches vie for attention on Twitter. Most are US based. Table 1.1 shows
popular American Twitter accounts with the Twitter handle and the
number of followers, but the list is by no means exhaustive:
2
https://www.ecole-savoir-vivre.com/, accessed 24.5.2022.
3
http://www.ecole-bonnes-manieres.ch/index.php, accessed 24.5.2022.
4
https://www.accademiasvizzeraetiquette.ch/, accessed 24.5.2022.
5
https://annemarievanleggelo.com/?page_id=2300, accessed 24.5.2022.
6
https://www.accademiaitalianagalateo.it/corsi/galateo-buone-maniere-base/, accessed 24.5.2022.
4 A. Paternoster
Table 1.1 Popular US etiquette Twitter accounts with Twitter handle and number
of followers (numbers correct as per 7.2.2022)
Number of
Twitter Account Twitter Handle Followers
EtiquetteCoach @PatriciaRossi 31.2K
Emily Post Institute @EmilyPostInst 17.6K
Etiquette Knowledge @etiquipedia 2929
Nancy S. Imbs | Author | Professional @polishedstl 2654
Development
Lori Zager Dominguez @PoiseMatters 1527
Candace Smith @CSmithETIQUETTE 1052
EtiquetteAdvocate @EtiquetteNancy 523
Etiquette Plus @EtiquettePlus4U 399
Etiquetteer @Etiquetteer 259
It’s All About Etiquette @EtiquetteMttrs 200
Peerless Etiquette LLC @PeerlessTweets 129
In all, tens of thousands of people follow US-based etiquette accounts on

Twitter. Canadian Margaret Page, @EtiquettePage, has over 4000 follow-
ers. Popular UK Twitter accounts are The Royal Butler, @TheRoyalButler,
with 34K followers, and Debrett’s, @Debretts, with nearly 13K followers.
Most of these accounts publicise the work of etiquette experts who make
a living as authors, influencers, keynote speakers, coaches or consultants.
Countries from the Arab world are represented as well: Maison Étiquette
& Protocole @MaisonEtiquette is based in Morocco; Haifa S. Shawwa @
HaifaShaww and ηαтнαℓу @NathalyAndraos tweet on etiquette in
Arabic, but their accounts do not mention a country of origin. The influ-
encer Jamila Musayeva has a dedicated etiquette channel on YouTube
with 627K subscribers. Marbella-based tiktokker @sofia.marbella posts
on etiquette and has an impressive 2.2 million followers.
A rapidly expanding area of etiquette is business etiquette, corporate
etiquette and global (or international) etiquette. Most etiquette acade-
mies provide courses in business etiquette, also called executive etiquette,
but its importance can also be documented via the more traditional
medium of printed books. A US-based finance webpage featuring Top Ten
Etiquette Books lists these as the top five books:7 The Essentials of Business
7
https://www.wallstreetmojo.com/etiquette-books/, accessed 24.5.2022.
1 Introduction 5
Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to Success (Pachter 2013);
Modern Manners: Tools to Take You to the Top (Johnson and Tyler 2013);
Business Class: Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work (Whitmore 2005);
The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top (Seglin 2016);
The Etiquette Advantage in Business: Personal Skills for Professional Success
(Post et al. 2014) by descendants of Emily Post. Topics covered are small
talk, introductions, greetings, videoconferencing, job interviews, busi-
ness wear, phone etiquette, netiquette and business emails, social media
etiquette, behaviour with superiors and co-workers, conflict manage-
ment, job stress, professional dinners, corporate events and international
business etiquette. Many topics, such as small talk, introductions, greet-
ings, dress, dinners show the overlap with social etiquette. Business eti-
quette translates as etichetta aziendale in Italian, l’étiquette des/en affaires
in French, zakelijke etiquette in Dutch. I list one publication per language
as in countries outside the Anglo-American sphere this is still an emerg-
ing field: 100 règles d’or du savoir-vivre dans les affaires: Étiquette, savoir-
vivre et protocole pour les managers (Moulinier 2012); Zakelijke etiquette.
De sleutel tot professioneel success (Berman 2015); Il galateo istituzionale.
Quando la forma è sostanza. Il comportamento formale nelle istituzioni e
nelle aziende (Sgrelli 2019). Massimo Sgrelli, who led the Italian
Department for State Ceremonial of the Presidency of the Council of
Ministers for 15 years, is also the author of a book exclusively dedicated
to protocol (Sgrelli 202111). With his 2019 book, Sgrelli is, as it were,
branching out, offering consultancy services to both the institutional and
the corporate domain, showing the clear overlap between etiquette for
major corporate events and institutional protocol.8
Protocol is a more institutional area within etiquette, and protocol
officers are represented in international organisations that cater to gov-
ernments and corporations alike, such as Protocol & Diplomacy
International, Protocol Officers Association (PDI-POA) or Organización
Internacional de Ceremonial y Protocolo (OICP). There are also national
protocol associations like the Italian Associazione Nazionale Cerimonialisti
Enti Pubblici (ANCP). Protocol officers meet in international confer-
ences, like the Global Protocol Summit organised in Moscow in 2021.
8
https://sgrellimassimo.it/, accessed 24.5.2022.
6 A. Paternoster
There are protocol training academies, like Dutch Protocol Bureau,

which also manage corporate events.
The range of contexts covered by etiquette is vast, but even institu-
tional protocol, like the services offered by the Protocol Bureau, still cov-
ers weddings and funerals, only they are royal weddings and state
funerals.9 There is an etiquette continuum going from social contexts to
business, corporate and institutional settings. The scale of events organ-
ised by protocol officers is far bigger, but the essence remains the same.
However, while court protocol has been a continuous presence for centu-
ries (see Chap. 4), with business and corporate etiquette counting as rela-
tive newcomers, for social etiquette—called society etiquette in historical
sources—the story is one of highs and lows. Rouvillois, a historian of
French etiquette and politeness, opens his book with a strong claim: “La
politesse vient de loin, mais elle revient de force.” ‘Politeness comes from
far away, but it comes back forcefully’ (Rouvillois 20082: 9).10 While for-
mal politeness in France reached highs during the last decades of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, it had
lows during the French revolution and the aftermath of the student pro-
tests in 1968. In between there were turning points, such as World War I
(Rouvillois 20082: 11). After World War II, France witnesses a simplifica-
tion, even a disappearance, of certain usages. For Rouvillois this down-
ward trend is inverted in 1990 (20082: 18).
Sánchez García uses the term reformalisation in reference to American
social norms surrounding jogging and running in the 1980s and 1990s
(2019: 247-266). Sánchez García builds on work by the Dutch sociolo-
gist Cas Wouters, who in Informalization. Manners and Emotions Since
1890 (2007) investigates twentieth-century codes of manners in Germany,
the Netherlands, England and the US. Informalisation results from
increased permissiveness, the growing taboo of displays of superiority,
reduction of social distance and the increased social integration of a wide
variety of social groups such as the working classes, women and immi-
grants, while Western society has become increasingly multi-cultural and
diverse. However, in line with Rouvillois, Wouters also observes the pres-
ence of the opposite process, reformalisation, starting with the 1980s and
9
https://protocolbureau.com/, accessed 24.5.2022.
10
All translations are mine.
1 Introduction 7
1990s (2007: 176). He explains the term as the “formalization of previ-

ous informalization”: “The most recent phase of informalization ended in
the late 1970s and was followed by another phase of reformalization”
(Wouters 2007: 9). Importantly, for Wouters the changes take place “in
several waves or spurts”: less rigid norms for behaviour emerge in the Fin
de Siècle period, they accelerate with the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and then
again in the 1960s and the 1970s, the “period of the ‘Expressive
Revolution’” (Wouters 2007: 167). In between, Wouters sees periods of
reformalisation, like the 1930s which in Britain are known as the
Victorian revival (2007: 171), and the 1980s and 1990s:
In the new phase, certain informalisation offshoots remained operative,

but on the whole reformalization gained the upper hand: dominant regimes
of manners and emotions tended towards greater strictness, hierarchy, and
consensus. There was renewed respect for discipline, for law and order, and
the sexual revolution was pronounced over and done with. (Wouters 2007:
176; original emphasis)
Wouters documents the phenomenon with a survey of books of manners

from the four countries that he studies. This quote, from a 1991 American
etiquette book, neatly registers the renewed interest in etiquette books.
Visser even documents the emergence of etiquette academies and busi-
ness etiquette.
There is increasing concern for manners in the modern West: newspaper

articles protest about the lack of them; the number of books telling people
how to behave and their enormous sales attest to an anxiety on this score
which rivals that experienced in the nineteenth century; and a new and
expanding business is the etiquette industry, where people formally, and for
a fee, teach protocol and the arts of the dinner table to ambitious business
men and women. It is realized, in the commercial world at least, that bad
manners might actually spoil a corporate image, hamper a deal, impede
mobility; good manners might make a competitive difference. Since bad
manners can be corrected, the demeanour of the staff is one of the things a
careful company can try to polish and control. (Visser 1991)11
11
Quoted in https://etiquipedia.blogspot.com/2022/02/etiquette-cancel-culture-and-rudeness.
html?spref=tw, accessed 24.5.2022.
8 A. Paternoster
Chapter 2 will use Google Ngram Viewer to show how the frequency
of the word ‘etiquette’ evolves in various languages. In languages where
the word has no polysemy (US and UK English) the downward trend
starts between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth century, but it is inverted in the 1980s and is still upwards for
the last available data, from 2016. Although the use of Google Ngram
Viewer is fraught with difficulties, the graphs tie in with findings by
Rouvillois and Wouters and reflect the expanding presence of the phe-
nomenon. It is this renewed social relevance of etiquette, for the last 30
or 40 years, that calls for a study into its historicity. Exploring the past
can provide innovative angles from which to research this revival because
it can be assumed that present-day etiquette has conserved some degree
of similarity with its nineteenth-century forerunner.
1.2 Etiquette Studies

That is not to say that historical etiquette has not been studied, on the
contrary. Norbert Elias’ founding study on formalisation, The Civilizing
Process (2000/1939), defends the hypothesis that the attention for man-
ners during the Renaissance in Western Europe resulted from an increased
need for self-regulation, which was rooted in socio-economic changes,
mainly the division of labour. The division of labour was based on larger
networks of interdependent people, and to function well together these
people needed to counter the selfish gratification of their feelings. In
Wouters’ analysis of Elias, “the main driving force” is “the dynamic of
social relations, that is, changes in the ways in which people are and feel
themselves to be bonded to each other” (2007: 5). In other words, it is
the upward mobility of ever larger groups, changes in class and status,
that explain changes in behavioural norms. Studies on historical etiquette
focus on the rise of the middle classes, and they all, in one way or another,
tend to accommodate Elias’ hypothesis for the nineteenth century, as a
period in which the upper and the middle classes gradually embrace a
conciliatory attitude after the conflict that sparked the French revolution.
The increase in formality, documented by growing numbers of etiquette
1 Introduction 9
books, is taken to document the growing interdependence of the upper

middle class and aristocracy.
In the 1980s and the 1990s Elias’ hypothesis sparked an entire genera-
tion of studies into nineteenth-century etiquette books. My book builds
on a number of well-informed book-length studies on different national
traditions. Michael J. Curtin writes a PhD thesis Etiquette and Society in
Victorian England (1981) at the University of California at Berkeley,
which enjoys a facsimile edition called Propriety and Position (1987).
John F. Kasson’s 1990 monograph is on Rudeness and Civility. Manners in
Nineteenth-Century Urban America. Next comes Mary Rosalie Fisher
writing an—sadly—unpublished PhD thesis from New York University:
Models for Manners: Etiquette Books and Etiquette in Nineteenth Century
France (1992). The last comprehensive study of that generation is
Marjorie Morgan’s 1994 Manners, Morals and Class in England,
1774-1858. Lately, there is a renewed scholarly interest in etiquette. I
already quoted Rouvillois (20082) for the French tradition. Dutch eti-
quette books are under scrutiny in the popularising monograph by Ileen
Montijn Leven op stand 1890-1940 (20006) ‘living with standing’. On
Italian etiquette books, important contributions are Paola Villani’s 2018
Ritratti di signore. I galatei femminili nell’Italia belle époque e il caso Serao
‘Portraits of ladies. Women’s conduct books of belle-époque Italy and the
case Serao’ and Luisa Tasca’s 2004 Galatei. Buone maniere e cultura bor-
ghese nell’Italia dell’Ottocento ‘Conduct books. Good manners and mid-
dle-class culture in nineteenth-century Italy’, which, despite the title, is
also on etiquette books. Finally, note Schrott (2005) on German conduct
and etiquette books with the revealing title Das normative Korsett ‘the
normative corset’. In a nutshell, existing etiquette studies concentrate on
various national traditions, whether American, British, French, Dutch,
Italian or German. Etiquette studies are not limited to the late-modern
period. The research project GALATEO (“Good Attitudes for Life in
Assyrian Times: Etiquette and Observance in Male and Female Groups”),
funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under the
Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement, is still in its initial stages and
heralds an exciting collaboration between archaeologists from the univer-
sities of Messina and Pennsylvania to research etiquette and manners in
ancient Assyria (Portuese and Scalisi 2021). To my knowledge, the only
10 A. Paternoster
comparative study on etiquette is by Wouters (2007) who, as seen above,

compares advice literature in the US, Britain, Germany and the
Netherlands; however, he concentrates on the twentieth century and the
trend towards growing informality, whereas the current book concen-
trates on growing formality in the nineteenth century. Studies into the
history of conduct books, however, have seen more comparative interest,
see Davetian 2009 on the genre in Britain, France and the US; Kenlon
2020 on Britain and America.
While I will make extensive use of existing etiquette studies in the next
chapter to chart the evolution of the etiquette genre in the nineteenth
century, there is one aspect that merits pointing out in a preliminary
fashion: the rules prescribed in national etiquette traditions are remark-
ably consistent. In the paragraph Change and Stability in Etiquette Curtin
defends the thesis that there is little change:
In essentials, an etiquette book purchased in the 1830s would still have

been useful eighty years later, and indeed some etiquette books were reis-
sued virtually unchanged as long as fifty years after their initial publication.
(Curtin 1981: 15)
Curtin concludes to the “unchanging nature of Victorian etiquette”

(1981: 15). Kasson has a similar opinion on American etiquette books:
[...] one quickly comes to recognize not just a similarity of material but
frequently a wholesale reception of passages (with or without quotation
marks) from other etiquette books of the period. Still, the consensus shared
by these books was more than derivative. The etiquette writers [...] pre-
served an extraordinary continuity of advice in the period from 1830 to the
beginning of the twentieth century, when at last new social and cultural
pressures forced changes. (Kasson 1990: 52-53)
As regards French sources, Fisher’s position is very close to Kasson’s:
In fact, the same or very similar prescriptions are often repeated from one
text to the next. Certain books reproduce entire passages from previously-
published works. The abundance of texts circulating does not therefore
1 Introduction 11
mean an abundance of codes. Rather, the abundance of texts lends greater

weight to a single code. (1992: 57)
In my opinion the same holds true for Italian and Dutch sources. The
question then is, if sources are so consistent within national cultures, does
the consistency stop at the border? The answer is a resounding ‘no’.
Literary critic Kent Puckett observes “a surprising international coher-
ence” between English, American and French etiquette books (2008: 19).
I will point out cross-cultural variation whenever necessary, but the over-
all impression is that my corpus of 92 etiquette books has a remarkably
similar content. This is further illustrated by double editions and transla-
tions. Because of the lack of an international copyright agreement, many
UK sources were reprinted in the US. Some French sources have double
editions in France and in Belgium. Overall, translations are rare, but not
inexistent. An early French source is quickly translated in English and in
Dutch. I discovered a rare French translation of an Italian etiquette book
(Paternoster 2018). Translations are more common in Dutch sources,
from English, French and German. These translations tend to be literal,
so as such they illustrate the international character of the norms, cater-
ing for the elite reader, who has an international and peripatetic lifestyle,
increasingly holidaying abroad (Evans 2016: 289). As a result, my reader
may presume consistency, whenever I do not specifically mention a cross-
cultural difference.
1.3 Politeness Studies and Research Methods

Although some etiquette scholars (Kasson 1990; Morgan 1994; Wouters
2007) quote Erving Goffman, none have considered etiquette from the
angle of politeness theory, which has been a highly productive theoretical
model since the 1970s. Vice versa, despite the solid folk presence of eti-
quette, it has only just started to attract the attention of politeness schol-
ars. A notable exception is the field of Computer-Mediated Communication,
where Netiquette or “online etiquette” (Graham 2007, 2008; Bublitz and
Hoffmann 2017) is a well-researched body of norms for appropriate online
interaction typically found in ‘about’, ‘help’ and ‘FAQ’ sections. In a rare
12 A. Paternoster
discussion of etiquette within politeness theory, Sara Mills (2017) uses

present-day etiquette books as sources to analyse the stereotyping of
British-English politeness. Etiquette, Mills writes, is usually considered as
the “slightly fossilised forms of behaviour which are considered ‘correct’”,
as “somewhat old-fashioned and pertaining only to rather rigid politeness
rules in formal situations” (2017: 60). However, Mills is quick to point out
that etiquette books are “still very much in vogue”, forming a “vibrant
resource, where individuals can address an ‘expert’ who can advise them
on appropriate behaviour” (2017: 60). Mills studies etiquette manuals
because they offer “explicit” advice on “‘correct’ forms of behaviour”,
which contain stereotypical beliefs based in a British middle-class ideology
of control (2017: 60-61). The rigid, conventional character of correctness
and class ideology will be amply illustrated in my analysis.
Dániel Kádár (2017) highlights the ritualistic and the normative char-
acter of etiquette within the moral order: whatever is normative, is not
only a social, but also a moral ‘ought’. Recently, Spencer-Oatey and Kádár
discuss etiquette as a set of prescriptive and proscriptive, that is, “injunc-
tive” norms, which “intrinsically interrelate with the socio-moral order”
(2021: 116). To show that sociopragmatic norms, particularly in the con-
text of etiquette, deserve more attention in pragmatics, they quote research
by Dunn (2011), who links the acquisition of pragmalinguistic norms—
the use of honorifics by employees in a Japanese company—to the acquisi-
tion of “social requirements of behaviour, including injunctive norms” in
the context of business etiquette (Spencer-Oatey and Kádár 2021: 117).
Spencer-Oatey and Kádár also survey existing approaches to etiquette. On
the one hand, scholars may examine etiquette “for its own sake” (2021:
19): the studies quoted in Section 1.2 all form part of this trend. On the
other hand, studies situated within politeness theory have used etiquette
“as a departure point” to (a) “capture politeness as a more abstract system”,
(b) “study etiquette as a form of social engagement” and (c) “to understand
the history of politeness in a particular period and geographical area”
(Spencer-Oatey and Kádár 2021: 19). The current study is squarely part of
the second group and covers the three different ways of integrating eti-
quette into politeness studies: it considers etiquette as an abstract system
of politeness (see below for its relationship with Discernment), it considers
it from a historical point of view for a specific geographical area, but it also
1 Introduction 13
aims to extrapolate findings for a theory of social engagement. Indeed, to

date there is no comprehensive account positioning etiquette as a fully
fledged theoretical concept within politeness theory. However, etiquette is
part and parcel of past and contemporary social practices, prompting key
questions about its relationship with gender, race stereotyping and social
class, with ritual, morality, conventionalisation and normativity. My book
fills this knowledge gap, with the aim of integrating etiquette into histori-
cal pragmatics and into politeness studies overall.
Within politeness theory, I investigate etiquette from the point of view
of metapragmatics. After 2000, the discursive turn in politeness studies
has strongly advocated research into folk notions of politeness. The tradi-
tional politeness model, also known as the first-wave model, was spear-
headed by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s (1987/1978) and
Geoffrey Leech’s (1983) founding publications where particular linguistic
forms were studied as politeness strategies: they were considered as hav-
ing an inherent mitigating and face-saving meaning. Discursive or
second- wave approaches followed Gino Eelen’s (2001) and Richard
Watts’ (2003) lead, who encouraged studies into the way ordinary people
broadly conceive of politeness. In this view, linguistic forms have no
inherent polite meaning, as politeness is always discursively negotiated by
the participants of the interaction. The new focus was on these local
negotiations and on how ordinary people understand and use the term
‘politeness’. As the discursive approach favoured fine-grained investiga-
tions into local understandings of politeness, it shied away from looking
into its more stable meanings. Currently, the pendle is swinging back
towards linguistic strategies in the sense that the so-called third-wave
approach endeavours to study conventional, default meanings of polite-
ness, whilst holding on to second-wave theoretical insights on the central
importance of the context and participant evaluations. As Taavitsainen
and Jucker have recently argued, there is no real theoretical need to
oppose traditional and discursive approaches: to the extent that the third
wave focusses on “the balance and the interaction between the inherent
(conventional or default) meaning and the discursively negotiated mean-
ings of specific linguistic elements”, the distinction between both
approaches “gets increasingly blurred” (2020: 5-6; on the three waves see
Culpeper and Hardaker 2017; Jucker 2020a: 9-13; on the third wave see
Haugh and Culpeper 2018).
14 A. Paternoster
Importantly, the discursive approach has argued for the need to distin-
guish between first-order and second-order concepts (Watts et al. 1992;
Eelen 2001; Watts 2003). Second-order concepts are theoretical con-
structs, lifted out of ordinary, everyday discourse by politeness scholars;
first-order concepts concern folk conceptualisations, used by participants
to talk about politeness and impoliteness, to “argue”, “admonish”, “com-
plain” (Taavitsainen and Jucker 2020: 4). While second-order concepts
are scientific labels, whose task is to be as precise as possible in order for
them to be unambiguously reused by the scientific community, first-
order concepts can be as rich and densely articulated as needed to reflect
the fuzzy views held by a particular speech community. Discursive theo-
rists, such as Watts (2003: 9), argued that the analytical focus of the field
had to be squarely on these folk evaluations and comments of (im)polite-
ness. This way, they gave theoretical prominence to metapragmatic com-
ments and politeness metadiscourse, such as conduct books, as expressions
of metapragmatic awareness. Verschueren understands metapragmatic
awareness as an awareness of the “processes operating on structural
choices anchored in context that contribute to the meaningful function-
ing of language” (2000: 444; see also Caffi 1984, 1998). Importantly,
language choices are the output of a reflexive “self-monitoring” balancing
the requirements of the context against a background of relevant norms,
which takes place at different levels of salience (Verschueren 2000: 444).
As a result, metapragmatic discourse on politeness is evaluative, subjec-
tive, emotive and moralising as it results from the monitoring of self and
other in respect of perceived values and rules held by members of the
speech community. Behaviour is judged as exemplary or not, good or
bad, preferable or avoidable. Kádár and Haugh highlight the presence of
valency in interpersonal evaluations: valency refers “to various scales
ranging from good to bad, appropriate to inappropriate, like to dislike
and so on” and is, therefore, “inevitably emotively charged” (2013:
62-63). In the same work, the authors offer a comprehensive overview of
four types of metapragmatic discourse (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 184-205,
see also Hübler and Busse 2012). Metapragmatic labels or (im)politeness
evaluators (‘polite’, ‘formal’, ‘affectionate’, ‘rude’, etc.) focus “on language
itself ” and are “constituted through politeness-related terms and
1 Introduction 15
expressions” (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 188). Metacommunication con-

sists of metapragmatic comments judging the ongoing interaction; it
regards language use that communicates about “communicative events”,
with a focus on “interpretations and evaluation of social actions and
meaning in interaction” (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 194). The third type,
metadiscourse, comprises societal discourses about how people should
behave. I quote the definition in its entirety as etiquette books belong to
this last category:
While the term discourse can be used in an ordinary sense to refer to talk or
written texts, it can also be used in a more technical sense to refer to a per-
sistent frame of interpretation and evaluation that has become reified:
treated as if it has an objective reality in itself. The reification of this persis-
tent frame of interpretation and evaluation occurs through lay observers
talking about or ‘discoursing on’ social, cultural and historical patterns of
language use at a societal level to the point that they become accepted as
encompassing conventional wisdom, and so no longer open to doubt or
questioning. Discourse focusing on such discourses is termed metadis-
course: where lay observers focus on how people should behave. (Kádár and
Haugh 2013: 200, original emphasis)
Note that metadiscourse is defined as objective, reified discourse convey-

ing “conventional wisdom” in a “persistent frame of interpretation and
evaluation”, a characteristic that neatly fits the prescriptive nature of eti-
quette books. A fourth type is metacognitive awareness, which will be
discussed in Chap. 5.
By choosing to study etiquette through the metadiscourse of etiquette
books, my research endeavour is, mainly, a first-order one. I use the word
‘mainly’ because some scholars have pointed out the ambivalent nature of
conduct books (on the terminological distinction between courtesy, con-
duct and etiquette books, see Chap. 2), in that they straddle first-order
and second-order conceptualisations of politeness. Culpeper (2017)
reviews characteristics of politeness1 and politeness2, the terms coined by
Eelen (2001) to distinguish between participant, first-order evaluations
of politeness and academic, second-order observations. Culpeper asks:
16 A. Paternoster
Where would conduct manuals fit in? They use “lay” terms and are non-
scientific, evaluative, morally charged and prescriptive. On the other hand,
writers of such manuals are not participants in the interactions they talk
about but are more like observers of them. (2017: 198)
Culpeper has a point in saying that conduct writers are not simply lay
participants, they are experts who are particularly good at rationalising,
that is, observing and extracting customs in their community of speech
and repurpose them as prescriptive rules in more or less systematic and
consistent accounts. For Terkourafi (2011) conduct books transform
descriptive rules into prescriptive ones:
Prescriptive norms [...] never materialize out of thin air; the process is never
an entirely top-down or bottom-up one. Rather, prescriptive norms his-
torically follow and reflect descriptive ones, while at the same time con-
straining future practices and so feeding back into the descriptive norms
that gave rise to them in the first place. (Terkourafi 2011: 176)
Terkourafi aptly describes the cyclical nature of this type of convention-

alisation. Conduct writers reproduce existing usage, which they prescribe
authoritatively, aided by their higher social standing, thereby legitimising
and perpetuating usage. Taavitsainen and Jucker agree that conduct writ-
ers “employ what they take to be exemplary behaviour of some people as
a model for others to follow, and to the extent that people follow this
advice, the prescriptive rules become the basis of description of what
people actually do” (2020: 7). Whilst Taavitsainen and Jucker hold the
view that prescriptive and descriptive rules are both part of the “first-
order domain” (2020: 7), I am inclined to say that conduct books partici-
pate to some extent in a politeness2 endeavour. The term proto-scientific
can be helpful here. Distinguishing between analyst and observer under-
standings of politeness, Kádár and Haugh identify proto-scientific under-
standings as a middle ground “lying somewhere between scientific and
folk-theoretic understanding of politeness” (2013: 102). As an example,
they refer to “work of scholars in the past where politeness was studied,
not systematically in its own right, but rather as just one part of a more
holistic record of customs and philosophical beliefs” (Kádár and Haugh
1 Introduction 17
2013: 102). Importantly, although such works “lack the methodological

and terminological systematicity of their modern counterparts, they are
invaluable as sources of understandings of politeness that go beyond folk
theorising” (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 103; my emphasis). Kádár and
Haugh refer to Chinese educational writings; for the Western tradition
writings by Aristotle, Cicero, Rousseau and Kant come to mind. For
Spencer-Oatey and Kádár it is important not to dismiss this historical
research into politeness since “politeness has been an integral concept to
philosophies that are pillars of our civilisation, such as that of Kant in the
West” (2021: 18; see also Xie 2021). Undeniably, etiquette authors, as I
point out in Chap. 2, are far less high-brow. I use proto-scientific here in
the sense that these authors are forerunners to the field of politeness stud-
ies, which becomes fully scientific in the 1970s. One example will suffice.
If etiquette authors write—as Chap. 3 will show—that etiquette is about
mere conventions while politeness is about the Golden rule, that is a
profound insight politeness scholars would dismiss at their peril. Indeed,
the concept of the Golden rule has recently been used as a politeness
principle by Culpeper and Tantucci (2021). At any rate, analytical terms
such as convention, rule, ritual, morality, blunder recur frequently in the
sources.
True, etiquette books were, if anything, fully fledged commercial
enterprises. However, some sources stand out, such as British Manners
and Tone of Good Society ([1880]2/[1879]). Sadly, it is anonymous, as it
was clearly written by someone who was particularly gifted (a) at observ-
ing and extracting the societal conventions of his or her time and (b) at
presenting them in a clear and systematic body of rules. But whatever
etiquette writers lose in intellectual clout, they amply win in consistency,
as seen above. And it is the far-reaching consistency of this metadiscourse
that leads me to say that at least some of the conceptualisations of eti-
quette and etiquette rules can be extrapolated and used for theorising
purposes, that is, within politeness2. Strictly speaking, it is a valid argu-
ment that the genre’s commercial success only proves interest of the read-
ers in the topic and not that the readers actually applied the rules (Jucker
2020a: 119). On the other hand, it clearly goes against an author’s (com-
mercial) interest to give incorrect advice. If the books were at odds with
the then current usage, who would have bothered to publish or to buy
18 A. Paternoster
them? Whilst Culpeper (2017) focusses on politeness strategies in the

first English translation of Giovanni Della Casa’s Galateo (1558), Italy’s
first conduct book, Paternoster and Saltamacchia (2017) list politeness
and impoliteness strategies in Italian nineteenth-century conduct books:
the consistency of the rules for verbal (im)politeness in various sources
points to more stable, conventional meanings anchored in recurring
structures, that is, politeness2. Etiquette books also contain linguistic
strategies (e.g. how to formulate polite requests with servants, how to
formulate polite disagreement), but I will focus on vulgarisms, hypercor-
rections and terms of address in letters and conversation. Also discussed
are sentence-long formulae for performing specific tasks, such as inviting
a woman to danse, or introducing people.
Another important distinction to pinpoint the exact loci of under-
standings of politeness offered by historical, prescriptive sources is the
emic/etic distinction as first formulated by Pike (1954). Emic under-
standing are those held by insiders, that is, members of relational net-
works. Etic understandings are formulated from the perspective of the
outsider, who is outside the relational network in question (see Kádár and
Haugh 2013: 95-96 in reference to Lett 1990). Jucker adopts a slightly
different perspective, where an etic approach is language-independent
and relies on second-order concepts, while emic is culture- or language-
specific (Jucker 2020a: 8-9). In this book, I mainly adopt the former
approach: it is emic in that it is teasing out the insiders’ view on etiquette.
That I work with different languages does not undercut the emic stance,
as far as cross-cultural differences are small, and can be subsumed under
the umbrella term ‘nineteenth-century Western cultures’.
Unfortunately, the late modern period tends to be somewhat under-
represented in historical pragmatics. An exception confirming the rule is
the voluminous body of work by Marina Dossena (2006, 2008, 2010a,
2010b, 2011, 2012, 2019a), who has extensively promoted historical
pragmatics and sociolinguistics of nineteenth-century English through
the study of a wide range of epistolary genres, from familiar letters to
bank correspondence (see also Dossena and Del Lungo Camiciotti 2012).
Paternoster and Fitzmaurice (2019a) have edited a volume dedicated to
nineteenth-century politeness. Often nineteenth-century politeness is
seen as a transition between a deferential and hierarchy-based type of
politeness typical of the ancien régime and a more strategic use of
1 Introduction 19
face-saving devices, typical of today’s Western politeness. Studies of

nineteenth-century politeness paint a complex picture where deferential
devices (a relic of the past) and strategic devices (announcing the future)
co-exist. In an influential paper, Culpeper and Demmen (2011) investi-
gate the conventionalisation process of ‘can/could you?’—ability-orien-
tated indirect conventional requests, the most frequent form of requesting
in contemporary English—in relationship with the growing individual-
ism in Victorian Britain. They find that the transition from impositives
to conventionally indirect can and could is slow to take off: despite their
corpus totalling 1.1 million words, it contains “a fairly small number of
results” (Culpeper and Demmen 2011: 74). The authors conclude that
Brown and Levinson’s “individualistic” focus is “a diachronic cross-cul-
tural peculiarity” and the outcome of a transition taking place “from pre-
nineteenth century to nineteenth century” (Culpeper and Demmen
2011: 51). In other words, the twentieth-century formulae ‘can/could
you?’ effectively emerge in the nineteenth century, but without present-
ing a substantial rise. In line with Culpeper and Demmen (2011),
Paternoster and Saltamacchia (2017) report a mixture of deferential and
strategic politeness formulae in nineteenth-century Italian conduct
books: on the one hand, there is still a strong presence of other-elevation
and self-depreciation in the use of personal pronouns, in expressions of
attentiveness and in requests, whereas politeness formulae used to seek
agreement and avoid disagreement are already similar to present-day
Italian usage. Shvanyukova (2019) studies impositives and distancing
moves in four nineteenth-century business correspondence manuals and
highlights “a previously unknown concern for the interlocutor’s negative
face and the wish to safeguard her/his freedom from imposition” (2019:
176). Whereas in previous periods, Spanish commissive speech acts are
developed in a relatively straightforward and explicit manner, King
(2019) notes a complex mixture of factors which led to their issuing and
attenuation in nineteenth-century colonial Louisiana. Dossena (2019a)
underlines the presence of emphatic politeness overplay in business cor-
respondence where there is an asymmetrical power status. Similar conclu-
sions are reached by Włodarczyk (2013) and Palander-Collin (2015).
These studies point to change, but they also observe that it appears to be
slow (see Paternoster and Fitzmaurice 2019b). Recently, Jucker has con-
tributed to this discussion with a chapter on non-imposition politeness in
20 A. Paternoster
the nineteenth century for American English (2020a: 160-183). His

findings for occurrences of please, can you, could you, would you in the
Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) are also in line with
Culpeper and Demmen (2011):
Some of the most prototypical elements of non-imposition politeness,

according to the evidence in the COHA, came to prominence much later
than previously assumed. Their frequency only started to rise noticeably in
the second half of the twentieth century. (Jucker 2020a: 179)
In the nineteenth century “conventionally indirect requests” only have a

“slow growth” which continues in the “early twentieth century” (Jucker
2020a: 173).
How to explain this co-presence of deferential and strategic devices of
politeness that makes the nineteenth century a period of transition? On
the one hand, the rise of non-imposition, face-saving devices is linked to
the changing perception of the individual self and of privacy as a positive
values in Victorian Britain, which Culpeper and Demmen link to
increased social and geographical mobility, urbanisation and industriali-
sation (2011: 60). Other factors listed by Culpeper and Demmen (2011)
are the breakdown of the extended family as a production unit, romanti-
cism and its promotion of romantic love, economic liberalism, the self-
help movement and political emancipation (for a discussion of these
factors for change in a nineteenth-century Italian context, see Paternoster
and Fitzmaurice 2019b: 24-27). On the other hand, these innovations
took place in a context where traditional values rooted in a collectivist
and hierarchical society were still strongly present and this may go some
way to explain the slow onset of change. This book endeavours to study
etiquette as proof of the enduring allure of aristocratic behaviour, whereby,
if a successful middle-class member wanted to consolidate financial suc-
cess by increasing his or her cultural and social capital, he or she had to
adopt the lifestyle of their social superiors. In particular, I aim to demon-
strate that nineteenth-century etiquette is a historically and geographi-
cally situated manifestation of Discernment, the analytical concept which
scholars of historical (im)politeness use to indicate a type of scripted,
non-negotiated politeness that expresses close adherence to a strict social
1 Introduction 21
hierarchy going from the ancient world to the ancien régime. In other
words, I consider ‘etiquette’, étiquette, etichetta, etiquette first-order terms
for the second-order term Discernment.
To do this, I collected a corpus of nearly 100 etiquette books, all public
domain texts drawn from digital libraries: Google Books, Internet
Archive, Gallica.fr, the British Library, Project Gutenberg and Delpher.
nl. This is the first study into historical etiquette making use of a digital
corpus. Historical pragmatics usually deals with a lack of data, but I
uncovered an abundance of digitalised etiquette books. Especially for the
US corpus, there was much more material available on Internet Archive
than what I could possibly accommodate in the corpus; for the
Netherlands and Italy I retrieved all known sources (with minor excep-
tions). The texts were uploaded in the corpus toolbox Sketch Engine. I
read all the sources, because this was the only way to allow for a com-
bined analysis whereby quantitative approaches based on corpus linguis-
tics (thesauri and collocations) alternate with qualitative analysis based
on close reading. Combining the two approaches is important. Corpus
linguistics and specifically collocation-based searches can find politeness-
related vocabulary that was missed in close reading. Vice versa, when
discussing a term in close reading, it is always useful to be able to point
to its frequency as additional reassurance that the term and the underly-
ing concept is broadly talked about in the corpus (and not an isolated
occurrence). Needless to say, working with different languages poses a
challenge, particularly when it comes to offering accurate and sensitive
translations. Sketch Engine was very useful in this regard. Since I was
translating towards UK English, potential translations were verified with
the UK corpus. In other words, I used the UK corpus as a glossary.12
1.4 Outline of the Book

The book is roughly divided into two parts. Chaps. 2 to 4 narrow down
my research object. Existing etiquette research, close reading, corpus lin-
guistics—both in my small-scale self-built corpus and in large historical
12
My self-built corpus on Sketch Engine is available for sharing.
22 A. Paternoster
corpora—historical and contemporary lexicography, etymology, all con-

tribute to finding out as much as possible about the specificity of eti-
quette. The second part of the book, Chaps. 5 to 7, contains the analysis
of my corpus of etiquette books. Mainly based on close reading, it aims
to prove the working hypothesis outlined in 1.3 and provide a definition
of etiquette.
Chapter 2 outlines the historical context in which etiquette books
emerge and become successful editorial products. It starts with a discus-
sion of the terminology used to label the various subgenres that make up
instructional writing on good manners. Although the terms ‘courtesy
book’, ‘conduct book’ and ‘etiquette book’ are often used interchange-
ably, they refer to textual genres that enjoy editorial success in different
time periods and have distinct characteristics in terms of target public
(social class, age) and the treatment of moral values. The chapter charts
the history of courtesy and conduct books, as this allows to separate my
research object, etiquette books, from neighbouring genres. Etiquette
books are an editorial novelty appearing at a particular moment in time
when the fortunes of conduct books are up and those of courtesy books
are down. Building on these initial distinctions, the chapter, then, turns
to etiquette books and explains how their relationship with social class
and gender differs from the one underlying conduct books. Whilst con-
duct books promote an inclusivist and enabling message, rooted in self-
help and moral virtues, etiquette books cater to the wealthy members of
the middle class who want to learn the rules of appropriate interaction
with the aristocrats. This allows for some rather interesting parallelisms
with courtesy literature as competitiveness links the court environment
to the nineteenth-century drawing-room. Once these broad understand-
ings of the etiquette genre are in place, the next step is to introduce the
etiquette book as an editorial product and discuss the trajectory of its
huge commercial success in the various linguacultures under scrutiny.
Building on existing research by etiquette historians, who mainly adopt a
national focus, the chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the history
of etiquette books in Western cultures, from the US to Italy, via Britain,
the Netherlands and France. It will become obvious that a comparative
approach pays dividends because the consistency in the history of eti-
quette books as a product is high, on more than one front. Finally, the
1 Introduction 23
focus moves from the genre to the sources used in this book. The chapter
introduces the source material and the digital corpus. It provides details
regarding the size of the subcorpora and the criteria for selection; it dis-
cusses retrieval from virtual libraries; finally it includes tables listing the
single titles in chronological order.
Chapter 3 is devoted to the definition of etiquette. While Chap. 2
adopts an external perspective on etiquette books, in Chap. 3 the point
of view becomes increasingly internal to the sources since it aims to pin-
point the concept of etiquette as defined by nineteenth-century etiquette
authors themselves. When the new genre of etiquette books first
appeared, quite naturally it needed to distinguish itself from the prevail-
ing instructional writings on good manners, that is, conduct literature.
As conduct books embrace a moralising view of politeness, so-called
politeness from the heart, that is, fraternal love based on the Golden
Rule of reciprocity as found in the Gospel, the chapter interrogates how
etiquette books relate to the moral core of politeness. The chapter works
with two first-order methodologies. Firstly, it proposes a qualitative
approach based on the close reading of prefatory material, where con-
duct and etiquette authors typically define and justify their approach.
How do conduct and etiquette authors conceptualise the social practice
they are codifying? To what extent do definitions of politeness promoted
in conduct books recur in etiquette books? Secondly, Chap. 3 adopts a
quantitative approach based on corpus studies: the corpus toolbox
Sketch Engine is used to investigate the term ‘etiquette’ in the various
linguacultures under study. Two questions are asked. What synonyms
does the corpus contain for ‘etiquette’? What are the main collocations
for ‘etiquette’? The aim is twofold: uncover related metapragmatic labels;
compare the semantic traits uncovered in the quantitative analysis with
the ones resulting from the preceding qualitative analysis. Finally, the
chapter proposes a working definition of etiquette. The definition is
data-driven and discursive and therefore it will be a rather long one,
because it will accommodate all the semantic traits found here and fur-
ther down the line.
Chapter 4 examines the origin of etiquette, expanding vastly the range
of sources considered. Whereas the previous chapter used my self-built
corpus of nineteenth-century etiquette books, the current chapter looks
24 A. Paternoster
beyond, proposing two approaches. Firstly, it investigates how etiquette

is talked about more broadly, that is, in other textual genres represented
in large historical corpora. After tentative explorations based on Google
N-gram Viewer, the chapter will swiftly move on to the Corpus of Late
Modern English Texts (CLMET) and the Corpus of Historical American
English (COHA) for British and American English; to the Digitale
Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren (DBNL) and Delpher for
Dutch; to Frantext for French; to Morfologia dell’italiano in diacronia
(MIDIA) and Corpus diacronico dell’italiano scritto (DiaCORIS) for
Italian. These historical corpora will help establish early occurrences of
the term ‘etiquette’ and how its use develops over time. Secondly, these
findings are confronted with dictionaries, both historical and contempo-
rary. Lexicographic information regarding first occurrences, the addition
of extended meanings, and etymology will consolidate the previous
quantitative analysis, however, new elements regarding chronology will
emerge. The reason I use dictionaries after having conducted a first-order
approach is that this avoids being limited by a preconceived idea of eti-
quette; however, it is reassuring to discover that the findings are comple-
mentary. The combination of the two approaches produces a timeline of
how the term ‘etiquette’ spreads through Western Europe: Spanish etiqu-
eta spreads to French, then to Italian, soon after to Dutch and English,
with first occurrences appearing within a time span going from the six-
teenth century to 1737. In all four languages the earliest occurrences refer
to Spanish court protocol. The chapter finds (a) that the first meaning of
‘etiquette’ is court protocol and (b) that it acquires the extended meaning
of society etiquette in the middle years of the eighteenth century, at a
time when the political and cultural influence of the royal palaces was
waning. Given the historical pre-eminence of France, the final section of
the chapter sheds light on aspects that are shared between French court
protocol and subsequent etiquette books, taking Napoleon’s imperial eti-
quette from 1806 as a starting point.
Whereas the previous chapters were dedicated to understanding my
research object from a variety of angles, Chap. 5 forms a first step into
verifying the working hypothesis, that nineteenth-century etiquette is the
continuation of ancien régime politeness, which scholars of historical (im)
politeness call Discernment. The focus is on the compulsory aspect of
1 Introduction 25
etiquette, which has been put forward as one of its main defining traits in
Chaps. 3 and 4 and is also a central characteristic of Discernment. The
chapter investigates how etiquette books go about prescribing norms: eti-
quette rules are organised around a set number of recurring social cir-
cumstances, which are treated as minutely sequenced scripts or
choreographies. Firstly, I investigate the shortest tables of content found
in the corpus and highlight their organisational principles, as the shortest
tables of content can be expected to only contain the essence of etiquette.
They contain three different kinds of chapters: rites of passage, occurring
once in a lifetime (christening, first communion and confirmation, court-
ship, marriage, honeymoon, funerals and mourning); recurring circum-
stances (visits, dinners, balls) and transferable networking skills (greetings,
introductions, conversation, correspondence, presents). Secondly, I show
how sources express awareness of the scripted nature with terms like
‘minutiae’ or ‘trifles’ and the use of theatrical and choreographical terms.
The central sections of the chapter focus on three recurring circumstances,
visits, dinners and balls: these circumstances are continuously present
from the earliest to the most recent sources. For each circumstance l illus-
trate how the rules form scripts or choreographies as they are structured
as fixed sequences of tiny steps. Not only does the reader have to perform
certain actions, he/she has to perform them in a prescribed order. Finally,
the ‘script’ hypothesis is extended to language advice that is provided as
script lines, for example, to make introductions or to invite a woman
to dance.
Chapter 6 is devoted to etiquette blunders. Etiquette sequencing
sparks a potentially worrying chain of arguments for the reader: circum-
stances are scripted into tiny steps, ergo, there are innumerable rules,
which cause etiquette to be particularly complicated. This leaves consid-
erable room for error. Combine this increased risk with the highly com-
pulsory nature of etiquette, and the etiquette reader faces a real problem,
which we may as well consider the ‘dark’ side of etiquette. From a theo-
retical point of view, it is the analytical concept of ritual that helps to
anchor anxiety about potential etiquette blunders in the field of polite-
ness studies. As performances, rituals are aimed at a specific audience and
the actors need to be ratified performers. This chapter zooms in on the
risk of non-ratification and the fear of social sanctions, like ridicule and
26 A. Paternoster
ostracisation. Much anxiety is generated by the first entrance in society,

which, physically, takes the form of the first ever entrance in a reception-
room full of people, especially during the ‘coming-out’ ceremony, when
debutantes are under intense scrutiny. Etiquette novices come in two
shapes. Young people who were born in the right social class may not
have been socialised into it as they were away at a boarding school or
confined to the schoolroom. A second group of newcomers consists of
the upwardly mobile, who risk being branded as a ‘parvenu’, that is, the
transclass who does not fully master the social rules of his or her new
peers. ‘Parvenus’ are especially guilty of ostentatious behaviour, in dress
choice and display of jewels, but I also discuss affectation in the context
of language blunders and hypercorrections. Ostentation and affectation
mark out the undesirable individual and, next, the chapter identifies a
destructive ritual within etiquette aimed at excluding such individuals.
How to prevent blunders? With ease and tact. Whilst ease is seen as the
performance-based aristocratic concept of naturalness, tact is an intel-
lectual capacity, which requires personal judgement to pinpoint the cor-
rect course of action in a unique circumstance. Finally, I make the case
that ‘tact’ is related to the lay term ‘discernment’, that is, as Discernment1,
and that it is important to tease out the conceptual link with Discernment2,
the theoretical concept.
Chapter 7 continues the investigation into the relationship between
etiquette and Discernment with the aim to demonstrate the omnipres-
ence of rank in nineteenth-century daily life, in activities such as shaking
hands, greetings, choosing seats in a drawing-room or in a carriage, to
name but a few. The phenomenon by which social hierarchy imposes a
strict order in which to do certain things is called ‘precedence’. Precedence
affects behaviour in two ways: it affects the timing of certain actions,
whereby the superior in rank has the right to do something first, and
there is a spatial precedence, whereby the superior is entitled to the place
of honour. As the abundance of examples will hopefully show, large con-
textual areas of social interaction follow rules that are firmly rooted in a
strict social hierarchy. The higher in rank has more rights: he or she sits
closer to the fire, gets the more comfortable seat, is served food first,
occupies the safer part of the pavement, has the front seat in the opera
1 Introduction 27
box, faces forward in a carriage, etc. Crucially, he or she enjoys comfort,

warm food, safety, a view, at the expense of the inferiors without this
being perceived by the latter as being impolite, that is, a selfish, unfair
attribution of resources, which is a slight to their face. In fact, it is pre-
scribed as the social norm. Precedence is first illustrated with a linguistic
example, involving an offer of food, to illustrate how rank alone deter-
mines different wordings of the offer. Next, I put forward an important
argument for the quasi-mandatory nature of the subordinate-superior
dynamic: in Britain and France, precedence is enshrined in law. While
this makes precedence fully mandatory in an institutional context, it
makes it at least quasi-mandatory in a non-institutional context. The
remainder of the chapter proposes an inventory of non-verbal prece-
dency, except for the last section, which is about the use of honorific
address in letter-writing and conversation, but also about episto-
lary layout.
Chapter 8 provides some conclusions and compares historical findings
with present-day etiquette.
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2
Etiquette Books
2.1 Introduction
Within the overarching category of instructional writing (for an overview
see Tanskanen et al. 2009; Griffin 2019), advice literature on good man-
ners is usually classified into various subgenres—courtesy books, conduct
books and etiquette books—but distinctions are not always consistently
handled and this leads to a fair amount of terminological confusion. The
three subgenres have, in fact, distinct characteristics, in terms of target
public (social class, age) and the treatment of moral values. It pays off to
keep them separate, also because the chronology of their respective edito-
rial fortunes differs. Etiquette books are, indeed, an editorial novelty
emerging in a context dominated by moralising conduct books, which, at
that moment in time, are reacting to the perceived shallowness of cour-
tesy books. Section 2.2, therefore, looks at the respective history of the
latter two genres. Section 2.3 zooms in on etiquette books and explains
how their relationship with social class and gender differs from the one
underlying conduct books. The current chapter provides the socio-
economic background to the period in which the genre emerges, which is
different depending on the country: etiquette books emerge first in

34 A. Paternoster
France, the UK and the US, and later in the Netherlands and Italy, two
countries where the industrialisation has a later onset. The bourgeoisie is
the class that instigates and benefits most from the twin revolutions, the
industrial and political one. Etiquette books commercially exploit the
aspirations of the rising middle class to join aristocratic networks and
prescribe the rules of an aristocratic code to be copied by the upwardly
mobile. While middle-class husbands accumulate wealth for their fami-
lies, their wives have a different mission: the women’s social skills can
obtain invitations into desirable networks and, in turn, they function as
gatekeepers to keep undesirable individuals out. Building on these prem-
ises, Sect. 2.4 introduces the etiquette book as an editorial product and
discusses the trajectories of its huge commercial success in the various
linguacultures under scrutiny. This and the previous sections make ample
use of the studies on national etiquette traditions by historians quoted in
Sect. 1.2. However, from the start, the comparative approach pays divi-
dends. This is the first comprehensive overview of historical etiquette
books in Western cultures, from the US to Italy, via Britain, the
Netherlands and France. It is immediately obvious that the consistency in
the history of etiquette books as a product is high, on more than one
front. Section 2.5 introduces the source material and the digital corpus.
It provides details regarding the size of the subcorpora, the criteria for
selection, and discusses the retrieval from digital libraries. Finally, it pro-
vides tables listing the titles that make up the various subcorpora in
chronological order.
2.2 Courtesy Books and Conduct Books

The literature falls victim to a fair amount of confusion when it comes
to the terminology used to classify instructional writing on good man-
ners into its various subgenres. However, approaches that adopt clear
distinctions—such as Curtin 1981; Fisher 1992; Morgan 1994; Tasca
2004—are the ones that are most useful to further the scholarly debate.
Morgan (1994) aptly distinguishes between three genres, courtesy
books, conduct books and etiquette books, and gives a clear account on
how their respective histories develop and interweave in Britain.
2 Etiquette Books 35
Terkourafi (2011) adopts a similar division and timeline where courtesy

books are followed by civility and conduct books, which are followed
by etiquette books. In a nutshell, courtesy books deal with the manners
of the ideal courtier and are mainly associated with the Renaissance
courts. Importantly, courtly manners are always considered in relation-
ship with religious and moral values. The same holds true for conduct
books. Conduct books emerge at the same time as courtesy books, but
they deal with elementary manners, or civility, for children and are
written for a school environment, having a socially broader readership.
Etiquette books only emerge three centuries later. From the 1830s
onwards, they address an affluent, middle-class readership of adults
who have benefitted financially from the industrial revolution and are
keen to learn the social conventions of the upper class. As a result, eti-
quette books tend to be amoral.
2.2.1 Courtesy Books
The European tradition of courtesy literature emerges in the first half of

the sixteenth century, but it has medieval forerunners. The facetus poems
appeared already in the twelfth century, at a time when the court was
emerging as a new political, social and cultural entity (Unceta Gómez
forthcoming). Courtesy books are also foreshadowed in monastic rules
such as the Disciplina clericalis by Pedro Alfonso (1969/beginning twelfth
century) or the De institutione noviciorum (1997/ca. 1141) by Hugh of
Saint Victor. The fortune of courtesy books, written by courtiers for
courtiers, is closely intertwined with the Renaissance courts. The arche-
typical representative is Il libro del cortegiano ‘The Book of the Courtier’,
written by Baldassare Castiglione (1528). Set at the court of Urbino dur-
ing the spring of 1507, it contains four dialogues on the qualities of the
ideal courtier and lady of the court. The Book of the Courtier enjoyed pan-
European success, with 115 publications and translations even before
1600 (Burke 1995). Within 40 years it was translated into Spanish,
French, Latin, English and German. Wherever they appeared, the trans-
lations kickstarted national traditions of courtesy books: English exam-
ples include Henry Peacham’s The Compleat Gentleman (1622) and
36 A. Paternoster
Richard Brathwait’s The English Gentleman (1630) (Morgan 1994: 11); in

France typical examples are Nicolas Faret’s L’Honneste-Homme ou, l’Art de
plaire à la Court (1630) and Antoine de Courtin’s Nouveau traité de la
civilité qui se pratique parmi les honnestes gens (1671) (Fisher 1992: 51).
An important feature of courtesy literature is that it tends to ground
manners in a central concern for ethics. Although the discussion of man-
ners is firmly based on ancient rhetoric authors, such as Aristotle, Cicero,
Quintilian, references to ethical works such as Cicero’s De Officiis or
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics are never far: “The most innovative aspect
of the Courtier is that perfect behavior is situated at the crossroads of
rhetoric and practical ethics” (Paternoster 2020). As a result, these were
not “practical digests of maxims or rules for the upwardly mobile”, but
rather they reflected on “universal principles of good taste” anchored in
“religious and moral virtues” (Morgan 1994: 10–11). Indeed, because of
the enduring link with morality and religion, courtesy books offer “gen-
eral precepts”, which allow the reader “to use his own judgment” (Georgia
1994: 92).
This link between manners and morality became strained with Lord
Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son (1774). After their publication the per-
ceived lack of morality “attracted onslaught of criticism from moralists
for what they regarded as grovelling, worthless and amoral letters”
(Morgan 1994: 11). For Curtin, the courtesy genre “died” at the end of
the eighteenth century and one of the reasons was that the Letters pro-
vided its critics with proof of the “rootlessness of fashionable manners”,
by an insider to boot (1981: 403–404, see also Carré 1994).
The eighteenth century is a pivotal period for the history of politeness
in Britain. Fitzmaurice (2010), in reference to Langford (2002), discusses
two opposite attitudes to politeness. On the one hand, the Spectator
mode focusses on politeness as a means of self-development for those
who are born outside the aristocratic elite and formal education. This
notion is associated with the Spectator periodical produced by Richard
Steele and Joseph Addison (Bond 1965), “who famously sought to make
the pursuit of philosophy and moral conversation more worldly and
sociable and less solitary and specialist” (Fitzmaurice 2010: 89). This
“enabling” (Langford 2002: 312) mode was aimed at “a much broader
segment of the population” (Jucker 2020a: 135). On the other hand, the
Shaftsbury mode was named after Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third earl
of Shaftesbury (Klein 1994), whose writings on a gentlemanly culture are
more socially exclusive and “advocate a show of manners and civility even
if the surface may be deceptive” (Jucker 2020a: 136), a view which later
finds expression in Chesterfield’s Letters. For Fitzmaurice, the beginning
of the eighteenth century is dominated by a view of politeness which is
more “altruistic” or “sociable”, as it takes into consideration the relation-
ship with the participant, whereas later in the century, “civil discourse is
increasingly formalised and formulaic”, “egotistical” (Fitzmaurice 2010:
93). Clearly, there is a debate about two contrasting meanings of polite-
ness, either as a means of self-development, rooted in a moralising view
on the need of paying attention to others, or as an unscrupulous means
of self-advancement at the detriment of others. This debate about polite-
ness can be captured via frequency searches in large historical corpora.
Using Google Ngram Viewer and the Corpus of Late Modern English
Texts (CLMET3.0), Jucker (2020a: 137) reports marked increases for the
terms ‘politeness’ and ‘civility’ in the second half of the eighteenth cen-
tury, whilst ‘courtesy’ has a more even distribution. Taavitsainen and
Jucker make similar frequency searches for the term ‘manners’ and note
“a very remarkable increase of frequency” within CLMET3.0, which they
take to show that “the need for people to talk about manners (a first-order
concept) rose considerably until the end of the eighteenth century”
(2020a: 9; see also Jucker 2020b: 103–108). Qualitative studies tend to
confirm the existence of contrasting conceptualisations of politeness,
which coincide with a class divide. Jucker examines epistolary novels and
educational theatre, which “often contrast what they see as middle-class
virtues with aristocratic licentiousness” (2020a: 140). He concludes:
The eighteenth century is called the age of politeness, but the concept of
politeness was complex and multifaceted. In the eighteenth century, it
could be used as an ideology to distinguish the ‘polite’ (i.e. higher social
classes) from the rest. It could be used to describe the surface manners that
were in accordance with prescribed etiquette, a mode that could be used to
deceive and to hide darker motives. And it could be used to describe
humanistic morality and religious piety. (Jucker 2020a: 158–159; see also
Jucker 2020b: 119)
38 A. Paternoster
Across the Channel a similar debate was taking place. In the Discours
sur les sciences et les arts, 1750, Jean-Jacques Rousseau attacked conven-
tional politeness because of its “vile et trompeuse uniformité” “vile and
deceptive uniformity”, which reins in personal freedom: “sans cesse la
politesse exige, la bienséance ordonne; sans cesse on suit des usages,
jamais son propre génie” “without ceasing, politeness makes demands,
propriety gives orders; without ceasing, common customs are followed,
never one’s own light” (1962/1751: 4; Rousseau 2011: 7). The call for a
more intuitive, altruistic politeness, which some scholars call the ‘univer-
salist’ view—in opposition with exclusionary views, which are limited to
the views of the dominating social class (Morgan 1994: 11; Fisher 1992:
144)—is typical of conduct literature, which addresses the “socially aspir-
ing middle classes, who had a desire to learn appropriate, and in particu-
lar polite, behaviour and needed advice not only from plays and novels
but from conduct books, grammar books and dictionaries, which were
published in ever increasing numbers in the eighteenth century” (Jucker
2020a: 159). It is to the genre of conduct books that I turn my atten-
tion next.
2.2.2 Conduct Books
Conduct books are different from courtesy books in two ways. Firstly,
their public is no longer limited to courtiers:
With the expansion of the target audience of these works from the heredi-
tary aristocracy of medieval courts to a class of self-made ‘new men’ making
their way up the social ladder, the notion of courtesy was transformed in
that of civility. (Terkourafi 2011: 170 in reference to Bryson 1998)
Indeed, civility and conduct regard the same genre. Secondly, conduct
books address readers of a far younger age. As with Il libro del cortegiano
for the courtesy book, here too a truly European bestseller shapes the
fortunes of the genre: Erasmus’ De Civilitate Morum Puerilium, from
1530. Conceived as a manual to teach children Latin, it talks about ele-
mentary manners for ordinary settings like churchgoing, school life or
table manners, and it recommends control over intimate bodily functions

and deference to one’s superiors (on the process of civilisation see Elias’
classic study (2000/1939), cf. Chap. 1). Erasmus’ work “remained over-
whelmingly influential” (Bryson 1998: 31), whilst a few years later,
another work with a pan-European impact was the Galateo ovvero de’
costumi by Giovanni Della Casa (1558), which enjoyed translations in
most European languages (see Santosuosso 1979 on the editorial fortunes
of the Galateo): an English translation followed in 1576 (see Culpeper
2017 on the English reception history of the Galateo). Della Casa’s target
public were functionaries at the Vatican, townspeople in general, even
servants. While the second half of the sixteenth century witnessed the
mounting popularity of manuals on the art of duelling—vigorously con-
demned by Della Casa—the Council of Trent and the Counter-
Reformation inspired a new generation of conduct books, asking readers
to forgive offences, rather than challenge the offender in a duel (Prandi
2001). These books promoted good manners as a conglomerate of so-
called small virtues such as patience, modesty, meekness, indulgence,
compassion, going from Saint François de Sales’ Introduction à la vie
dévote (1608) to Les Règles de la bienséance ou de la civilité chrétienne by
Saint Jean Baptiste de La Salle (1716/1703) and to Giovanni Battista
Roberti’s Trattatello sovra le virtù piccole (1765). These Catholic manuals
highlight a third characteristic of conduct books, the fact that they under-
stand good manners in a profoundly moralising, that is, religious way,
regardless of whether their background is Catholic or Protestant. Some of
these titles became real longsellers: Fisher notes how de La Salle’s work
was reissued in France “as late as 1875” (1992: 186).
Instructional literature in English goes back to the thirteenth century,
but publications accelerated in the sixteenth century, with Puritan con-
duct literature for women (Doty 2009). The term ‘conduct’ in the mean-
ing of “manner of conducting oneself or one’s life; behaviour; usually
with more or less reference to its moral quality (good or bad)” enters the
English language in 1673 (Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.
com/, accessed 21.12.2021; see Kukorelly 2020: 123–129 for an over-
view of the genre in eighteenth-century Britain). At the end of the eigh-
teenth century British religious reformers reacted to the shallowness of
aristocratic manners in “evangelically inspired, middle class conduct
40 A. Paternoster
books”, which peaked to a “flood” of publications between “the 1770s

and 1830s” (Morgan 1994: 12–13). The underlying advice was “the prin-
ciple that religion—not fashion, custom or taste—was the basis of man-
ners and morals” (Morgan 1994: 13–14):
Advice on such practical matters as dressing, visiting or inviting guests to a

meal mingled with more solemn discussions of religion, morality and qual-
ities of character such as benevolence, vanity, modesty, virtue and integrity.
However, the attention and emphasis […] on these latter issues far out-
weighed that placed on fine points of appearance, external manners and
social decorum. (Morgan 1994: 16)
The writers had “middle class status”, whereby “conduct books tended to
be composed for middle-class adults, and even more often, for their inex-
perienced children” (Morgan 1994: 15). Morgan provides detailed fig-
ures to demonstrate that the price range of the books is out of reach for
the working class (1994: 15). For the first time, women formed a signifi-
cant target market, although the works “by no means focused exclusively
on women” (Morgan 1994: 15). Overall, the message is “rooted in uni-
versalism” and seeks a “widespread application” (Morgan 1994: 17).
Etiquette books emerged in the 1830s (as I will argue in Sect. 2.3), but,
of course, the editorial fortunes of conduct books did not stop there, as
they were seen as a vehicle for self-development, especially within the
self-help movement, which was inaugurated by the conspicuous editorial
success of Samuel Smiles’ Self-help (1859), with central themes as self-
reliance and self-improvement through education and work as a means to
overcome poverty. Texts for women evolved around the figure of the
‘angel in the house’, they encouraged domesticity, purity, modesty and
glorified motherhood.
In colonial America, conduct books “were reprinted from English and
French sources” (Kasson 1990: 12). Kasson cites the example of Eleazar
Moody’s School of Good Manners (1745/1715), which was based on a
1561 French conduct book: “first printed in New London, Connecticut,
in 1715” it ran “through at least thirty-three editions before the mid-
nineteenth century”, containing the usual “mixture of instructions on
worldly deportment and Christian doctrine” (1990: 12–13). For
Dallett-Hemphill (1999) the revolutionary period (1740–1820) saw the

publication of texts by middle-class British men, while more books were
written for women. The American conduct book is very similar to the
European tradition as it is:
a text that is intended for an inexperienced young adult or other youthful

reader, that defines an ethical, Christian-based code of behavior, and that
normally includes gender role definitions. Thus “conduct book” embraces
those texts whose primary aim is to describe and define a basically Protestant
scheme of life, morals, and behavior, in order to encourage ideal conduct
in white, generally middle-class children, young men, or young women.
(Newton 1994: 4)
Just like their European counterparts, American texts promote discipline

for the self-made man—inspired, also, by the landmark text that is
Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (1791)—and domesticity for women.
Newton’s bibliography of American conduct books before 1900 lists over
500 works: 196 books for children, 142 for men, 188 for women and 57
books for both genders (1994). The numbers are substantial and demon-
strate that the conduct book remained popular, even when etiquette
books became successful (see Mennell 2007 on American civility;
Davetian 2009 on civility in Britain, France and the US; Kenlon 2020 on
conduct books for women in Britain and America).
Bérenguier’s (20162) monograph on Conduct Books for Girls in
Enlightenment France proposes an insightful analysis of eighteenth-
century successful publications, centred around motherhood, the dan-
gers of the world outside the domestic space, the moral values of purity
(pudeur) and modesty, self-education (within reasonable limits!) and
marriage. Fisher provides a selected bibliography of nineteenth-century
conduct books, which she calls civilités (1992: 165), to distinguish them
from etiquette books, for which she suggests the term guides de savoir-
vivre. Descendants of the genre inaugurated by Erasmus, the civilités only
change slowly in respect of their ancien régime predecessors. All are
focussed on a moralising view of politeness and share “Catholic and
Rousseauist influences” (Fisher 1992: 179):
42 A. Paternoster
Rare was the author who did not proclaim the necessity of grounding the
gestures of good manners in true feelings of benevolence towards others or
“la politesse de cœur”. This last was defined as a natural or instinctual
politeness which provided the moral foundation for the larger social con-
ventions or “les bienséances”. The insistence upon a moral foundation for
what would not necessarily be a moral edifice became increasingly impor-
tant in children’s etiquette books during the nineteenth century. (Fisher
1992: 167)
Although the Erasmian model of elementary civility stays popular, Fisher

observes a new trend whereby conduct books, especially the ones for
young girls, offer increasingly detailed advice. This creates a hybrid genre,
where morals are associated with rules for worldly circumstances (Fisher
1992: 189). I have encountered these works while building my corpus
and I have carefully looked at the balance between generic moralising
advice and detailed social conventions before deciding whether to include
them or not: Clarisse Juranville’s Le savoir-faire et le savoir-vivre dans les
diverses circonstances de la vie: guide pratique de la vie usuelle à l’usage des
jeunes filles (1879) was excluded because it only dedicates about 50 pages
to etiquette on a total of 240 (see Fisher 1992: 190–198 who classes it,
indeed, as an conduct book, and notes it had 28 editions until 1919).
Importantly, conduct books were used as school manuals from the Third
Republic onwards, when primary school became compulsory. Curiously,
“most of the books recommended are Catholic”, but this may be explained
by the fact that the “schoolbook publishing industry” was “largely con-
trolled by Catholic publishers” (Fisher 1992: 200).
The Italian history of nineteenth-century conduct books is largely sim-
ilar. Because of the Unification of Italy in 1859, which sees the introduc-
tion of compulsory primary school, there is a sudden demand for reading
material. This causes a peak in the production of conduct books in the
1860s and 1870s (Tasca 2004: 24). After decennia of deep socio-political
divisions, the ruling class needed to create a national identity: conduct
books were seen as reliable instruments in the nation-building effort
insofar as they contained a discourse of social stability and self-
development, with an emphasis on study and work. The Italian term for
conduct books is galatei: the title of Della Casa’s Galateo became a
common noun, and this happened precisely in the nineteenth century

(Tasca 2004: 41). Teaching good manners was seen as a means to encour-
age social promotion: conduct books were written either for school chil-
dren or for adult members of the petty bourgeoisie with a view to provide
them with the tools to become fully fledged citizens of the young Italian
nation. Authors (headmasters, teachers, clergymen) belonged to the edu-
cated middle class and they addressed the social class that was just below
them with a moralising, mostly Catholic message. Because this reader-
ship had limited resources, the topics discussed did not require a big
financial outlay: visits, walks, theatre, churchgoing, school life, table
manners, etc. and they stayed within the Erasmian perimeter of provid-
ing an elementary code of good manners. As a product, they were rela-
tively cheap (on Italian conduct books, see also Botteri 1999; Vanni
2006; Turnaturi 2011).
Finally, the Netherlands, like Italy, were engaged in a search for national
identity after a period of French occupation under Napoleon. This was
soon followed by another difficult moment when Belgium, which had
been incorporated into the Netherlands after the Congress of Vienna,
became independent in 1831. Trying to avoid a new revolutionary wave
in 1848, the liberal government introduced constitutional reform, which
went hand in hand with social and educational reform: the Maatschappij
tot Nut van ’t Algemeen (‘Nut’ for short; Society for Public Welfare)
“prioritised education and improvement for the lower and middle classes”
and a “new ‘state’ school system was introduced” (Hesseling 2015: 9).
The industrial revolution took hold in the second half of the century and
created an affluent middle class. The search for a national identity and the
educational reform inspired “an explosion of printed material” including
educational publications (Hesseling 2015: 16). The Netherlands form no
exception to the success of conduct books, as there was a “copious
amount” of books for children (Hesseling 2015: 29). Many were transla-
tions, predominantly from German, and Erasmus’ influence remained
important for Catholics and Protestants alike. Good manners were firmly
anchored in religion and conduct books addressed children from a
middle-class background (Dongelmans 1999: 93). The overall nineteenth-
century-trend, for Dongelmans, is a transition from conduct to etiquette
manuals, from male to female authorship, from religiously inspired
44 A. Paternoster
manners to mere conventions, from comprehensive approaches to

detailed treatment of set circumstances, from inclusive and universalist
messages to a desire for class distinction (1999: 104). At any rate, both
Dongelmans and Hesseling treat conduct and etiquette books as one
genre, so it is not always clear to which subgenre they are referring.
Furthermore, some Dutch examples form part of the hybrid category
identified by Fisher, for example, anonymous Nieuw handboek der welle-
vendheid (1842). It only contains minimal attention to outward conven-
tions and was not withheld in the corpus.
2.3 Etiquette Books, Social Class

and Women Arbiters
Conducts books, as we have seen, do not venture far beyond the elemen-
tary circumstances treated by Erasmus for school children, which require
a modest financial outlay. This changes noticeably with etiquette books.
While Sect. 2.3 will introduce the etiquette book as a commercial, edito-
rial product, here I summarise existing research about the sources’ rela-
tionship with social class and gender, to distinguish them from conduct
books. The relationship with the middle class, to say the least, is ambigu-
ous. Put simply, as the genre aims to codify the rules of the upper class, it
is exclusivist, however, as its target public is the upper middle class—
because only they have the financial means to put etiquette rules into
practice—it becomes an instrument of social mobility. Etiquette scholars
have described this tension field in different ways. This is quite a neat
formulation of the problem, seen from an American perspective:
The most fashionable social groups, well aware that their fortunes might
easily be eclipsed, tried with mixed success through the century to reserve
their rank for those of prominent lineage and inherited prestige. But if the
fine points of manner could operate as another means of exclusion at the
upper ranks of society, for much of urban middle-life the cultivation of
bourgeois manners served as an instrument of inclusion and socialisation.
Fundamental to the popularity of manuals of etiquette was the conviction
that proper manners and social respectability could be purchased and
learned. (Kasson 1990: 43)
A wish to exclude in who is high up and a wish to be included in who is

just underneath created the “potentially contradictory” demands for
“social mobility and the preservation of the social order” (Kasson 1990:
57). For Morgan etiquette books “resulted as much from this obsession
with buttressing the social hierarchy and keeping people in their places as
from a desire to ease their way into higher stations”, and this created a
“somewhat ambivalent and paradoxical” nature whereby they “presumed
and facilitated an increasingly mobile society” and, at the same time,
“attempted to impart a knowledge of and respect for the existing social
order” (1994: 27–28). Morgan aptly concludes to a fundamental differ-
ence in objectives between etiquette, on one hand, and etiquette books,
on the other:
Whereas etiquette books were designed to facilitate incorporation of out-

side groups into the elite, etiquette itself was used to keep the aristocracy as
well as smaller fashionable circles apart from and more refined than those
they considered beneath them in the social scale. (1994: 28)
Etiquette is a “defensive weeder”, a set of minute rules, a breach of which

“provided instant evidence that the offender was an outsider to be ostra-
cised” (Morgan 1994: 28); etiquette books react by becoming increasingly
detailed to prevent these very blunders. The drawing-room is a place
dedicated to conversation, a slippery social practice harder to codify than
any other, which functioned as a “sieve”: “maintaining the sieve between
the drawing-room and the outside world became the right and duty of
women—the newly designated arbiters of ‘Society’ and the drawing-
room” (Morgan 1994: 29). Morgan concludes: “Etiquette thus func-
tioned paradoxically both to facilitate and to limit social advancement”
(1994: 94; Curtin 1981: 72).
In a nutshell, etiquette books help upper middle-class readers, who
have financial means but no refined manners, to gain access to aristo-
cratic circles, who use the intricacy of etiquette to try and keep the latter
out. It is, therefore, only natural to assume that the model prescribed is
an aristocratic one. Scholars like Morgan and Curtin fully embrace such
a hypothesis: etiquette writers are about “dispensing aristocratic manners
for the upwardly mobile middle-class folk” (Morgan 1994: 26; Curtin
1981: 19). Not all agree, though: Fisher posits that French “etiquette
46 A. Paternoster
book writers abandon attempts to assimilate aristocratic patterns of

behavior and begin to differentiate their code of behaviour from the aris-
tocratic code” (1992: 34) in favour, that is, of a bourgeois code, which,
nevertheless, is “increasingly elaborate” (Fisher 1992: 36). Fisher provides
a detailed analysis on time management in etiquette books. Time man-
agement is linked to industrialisation and is a typical middle-class con-
cern whereas aristocrats cultivated leisure. She argues that time is one of
the principal factors in the organisation of social life, especially when it
comes to calculating the appropriate spacing of return visits and invita-
tions (Fisher 1992: 97–104). Fisher could, in fact, have driven the argu-
ment even further. French sources recommend bookkeeping techniques
to track not only household expenses, but also invitations and visits,
because delaying a return visit can be seen as a move to cool down the
acquaintance:
Mais c’est une vraie comptabilité à tenir, m’écriai-je, que le registre de

toutes ces soirées! Que deviendraient vos malheureux hôtes si vous avisiez
de la tenir en partie double? ‘But that’s proper bookkeeping, I cried out, to
keep accounts of all these evenings! What would become of your unfortu-
nate hosts if you dared them to keep books in double entry?’ (Parr 1892: 43)
Advice to keep a record of visits occurs also in F. G-M. (1908) and

Baronne d’Orval (19016). However, references to use bookkeeping tech-
niques in registering visits are not exclusively French. Visiting lists are a
staple of American etiquette, where ladies are advised to keep “a list of
their own ceremonious visits for the season, noting those that have been
returned” since the “time thus expended is amply repaid by the conve-
nience of reference and the avoidance of the possibility of making a sec-
ond visit when the first is unreturned” (Cooke 1899/1896: 75). Being
invited is seen as incurring a social debt (Moore 18782) or a debt of hos-
pitality (Cooke 1899/1896), but the requirement to neatly balance visits
and invitations occurs in British and Dutch sources as well (Humphry
18972; Verlaane 1911/1885). Another argument going against Fisher’s
hypothesis of a bourgeois etiquette is the fact that almost all the authors
in the French corpus are real aristocrats or use an aristocratic penname.
In my view, the moment the analysis is expanded across national borders,
etiquette books appear very consistent, and they consistently legislate an
aristocratic code. Curtin words the relationship with the middle class
most stringently: even when the social elite in Britain included increasing
numbers of middle-class members, “the rules of etiquette were not neces-
sarily altered by this fact” (1981: 20). Middle-class ideology is undoubt-
edly influencing etiquette books, but my working hypothesis is that in
nineteenth-century etiquette books the direction of fit is
bourgeois-to-aristocrat.
Having said that, it would be a generalisation to consider the middle
classes and the aristocrats as two distinct ideological blocks. An impor-
tant argument is put forward by so-called revisionist historians, like
Mayer (2010/1981). Arguing against the traditional view by which the
British middle class triumphs over the aristocracy, revisionist historians
point out the “persistence of aristocratic powers and ideals throughout
the 19th century” in “Cabinet, Parliament and county government”
(Morgan 1994: 4). Indeed, in Britain, there were “almost no poor aristo-
crats” (Evans 2016: 278). Furthermore, both classes share certain values:
the aristocrats have numerous entrepreneurial, capitalistic interests; the
middle class consists of a multifaceted group of which only a small part
was entrepreneurial; the landed and educated bourgeoisie have more tra-
ditional values, such as the rentier wish to invest risk-free in land and
property. Over time, the relations between the aristocracy and middle
class “progressed from being confrontational to being conciliatory and
integrative” (Morgan 1994: 7). In America, the “colonial landed and
commercial gentry” sought to “emulate the style of their English counter-
parts” through great houses, household furnishings and clothes (Kasson
1990: 20). The colonial social script, Kasson concludes, remained “that
of English rank-ordered society” (1990: 22). The transformation to a
republican and capitalist society, however, did not eliminate sharp class
barriers, if anything, divisions were made worse (Kasson 1990: 36; see
Fisher for a similar observation on the French middle classes, 1992: 135).
Industrialisation created “a new urban upper class composed of both
established families and those of new wealth, eager to acquire cultural
capital and to set themselves off as a quasi aristocracy from those below”
(Kasson 1990: 36). This aristocracy of wealth behaves like … an aristoc-
racy (Young 2003: 128), pursuing social distinction and closing ranks
towards the bottom.
48 A. Paternoster
Paternoster and Fitzmaurice (2019b) investigate the relationship

between aristocracy and the middle classes for nineteenth-century Britain
and the European mainland based on Kocka (1988, 1989), Pilbeam
(1990) and Evans (2016). They argue (a) that the aristocracy remains
powerful; (b) that the bourgeoisie is small, heterogeneous and divided
and (c) that the line separating nobility from non-nobility is increasingly
fuzzy and porous, which gives rise to a composite ruling class (Paternoster
and Fitzmaurice 2019b: 5–15). A comparative review of levels of interac-
tion between the aristocracy and the bourgeois elite in Europe shows,
however, a range of different levels of interaction. In Britain levels of
interaction were the highest, and aristocrats and entrepreneurs (mer-
chants, bankers, factory owners) formed a plutocracy, which benefitted
from early industrialisation and the expansion of the colonial Empire.
On the opposite end, Prussian and Russian aristocracy was all-powerful
and tended to avoid interaction with a middle class, which it perceived as
weak, although the rhythm of German industrialisation would rapidly
increase. In the middle of the spectrum, Belgium and France were at the
forefront of European industrialisation. In these countries, the aristo-
crats’ political power had been undercut by successive waves of revolu-
tions. The overall trend in Europe was towards gradual impoverishment
of the nobility (Evans 2016: 278); however, this was a slow process as
aristocrats entertained entrepreneurial interests and were well represented
in parliament, state bureaucracy, diplomacy and army (Pilbeam 1990:
143–145).
After the French hereditary nobility was abolished under the
Revolution, Napoleon created electoral colleges composed of notables.
These included only a small number of members of the ancien régime
nobility and were dominated by landowning bourgeoisie, members of
the state bureaucracy, army and clergy, liberal professions, merchants and
entrepreneurs. During the Empire, Napoleon created a new nobility,
composed mainly by members of the middle classes and army officers,
often from a working-class origin. Although notables technically ceased to
exist with the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1848, historians
now tend to study this group as a social elite, whose influence extends to
World War I (Levati 2009). A similar composite elite was formed in Italy
and the Netherlands well before the advent of the industrial revolution.
Although the Italian notabili counted far more ancien régime nobles than
in France, new careers in the state bureaucracy gave rise to a meritocracy
of elite civil servants. Napoleonic ‘social engineering’ changed the Italian
ruling class, and its influence extended far beyond the two decades of
French rule (Levati 2009). In a similar development, the Dutch aristoc-
racy of regents was abolished under Napoleonic rule. Some aristocratic
families managed to recover their privileges in 1814, but they shared elite
status with the patriciaat, the patricians, who, similar to the French nota-
bles, comprised non-noble dignitaries who had held public office (Moes
2012). After 1848, these “old” patricians, who often intermarried with
the nobility, were joined by “new” patricians, wealthy entrepreneurs and
members of the educated bourgeoisie (Moes 2012: 46) who desired to
increase their social status. The longevity of this social elite is proven by a
yearly genealogical publication, founded as late as 1910, Nederland’s
Patriciaat, also called Het Blauwe Boekje ‘the bleu booklet’, the latest
instalment of which, no. 96, saw the light only recently (de Clercq
2018-2019). This upper middle class adopted an aristocratic lifestyle,
mainly by purchasing land and living of it as rentiers:
De meeste van deze ‘nieuwe’ families hadden tussen het begin van de
negentiende eeuw en de Eerste Wereldoorlog, dus binnen drie tot vier gen-
eraties, een proces doorlopen van entrepreneur tot fabrikant, kassier of
handelaar, en vervolgens tot grondbezitter en rentenier met aanzienlijke
status en velen tooiden zich met een aristocratisch aureool door adellijke
kentekenen over te nemen, zoals het bezitten van een buitenplaats, het
voeren van een dubbele naam en het verwerven van een grondbezitterssta-
tus door de aankoop van landerijen. ‘Between the early nineteenth century
and World War I, i.e., within three to four generations, most of these ‘new’
families had evolved from entrepreneurs to manufacturers, bankers or mer-
chants, and then to landowners and rentiers of considerable status and
many surrounded themselves with the aura of nobility by embracing aris-
tocratic characteristics, such as owning a country residence, using a double
name and acquiring landowner status through the purchase of landed
estates.’ (Moes 2012: 47)
This Dutch evolution is representative of a general trend in Europe

(Pilbeam 1990:70; Evans 2016: 286) whereby middle-class members
50 A. Paternoster
heavily invested in the purchase of land to acquire prestige. Historians

like Pilbeam and Evans have no doubts about who is copying who when
it comes to adopting an elite lifestyle (see Paternoster and Fitzmaurice
2019b: 9–12).
The wealth accumulated by bourgeois men also benefitted their wives
and daughters. Hiring at least one servant would free a middle-class
woman from performing the most menial tasks and this, in turn, freed up
leisure time for cultural and social pursuits, such as visits. Bourgeois
women were separated from their husbands’ professional sphere and the
home increasingly became a private and feminised space. This segregation
of women is interesting from two points of view. Firstly, if you look at it
from the point of view of aristocratic women at court, this segregation is
a serious step backwards from the point of view of women’s emancipa-
tion. Within the highly competitive environment of court or the high
society salons, aristocratic women were engaged in a full-time career of
promoting their families’ interests with peers and members of the royal
family. So much so that French eighteenth-century conduct books for
girls attacked aristocratic women as bad, unnatural, absent mothers, who
left the education of their daughters to governesses. These books tend to
“express disapproval of negligent mothers”, that is, “aristocratic women”
unwilling “to give up their social life” (Bérenguier 20162: 67). Secondly,
asking mothers to give up their social obligations and stay at home to
become the angel wife is a middle-class inspired social regression for
women. Importantly, the demand for domesticity is linked to the misog-
ynistic perception that it was mainly the scheming tactics of the aristo-
cratic women that brought about the revolution: “Educated women” in
postrevolutionary French society “had to contend with an extensive lit-
erature that attributed the decadence and fall of the Old Regime to the
influence of court women in general and Queen Marie Antoinette in
particular” (Rogers 2005: 19). Especially the salon women were targeted
as having had a “pernicious public influence” (Rogers 2005: 20). Already
under Napoleon more weight is given to “claims that women had a natu-
ral role within the family” (Rogers 2005: 21), that is as a “mère-ménagère”,
‘mother-housekeeper,’ basically, the angel of the house whose public role
is limited to raising the citizens of the future.
Etiquette books go against this tide, as they inspire their female readers
to pick up the social role noblewomen had left behind. Section 2.4 will
highlight the increasing presence of female etiquette authors. This femi-
nisation of the genre is not without consequences for the subject matter,
as women tended to write for women. Whereas conduct literature con-
sidered women only from the angle of domesticity, etiquette books
encouraged them to leave the house and partake in a rich array of social
activities, such as visits, dinners, theatre plays, concerts, exhibitions, pub-
lic conferences, venturing outside town, in spa, sea, mountain resorts,
with the women’s leisure becoming a status symbol advertising their hus-
bands’ superior power and wealth. Although the latter amounts to con-
spicuous leisure (Veblen 1899), clearly, these women were not just victims
of the social order. Even segregated into a private sphere, they contrib-
uted to their family’ fortunes in decisive ways. Being a good hostess and
having an influential drawing-room could advance one’s husband’s career
and one’s children’s position on the marriage market. Vice versa, if a
young man wanted to gain influence, it was important to be received in
certain drawing-rooms:
Their [of women] sway was not trivial, either, as a woman’s skill as a hostess
greatly influenced her husband’s career and status. Furthermore, success
and acceptance in ‘Society’ for a man was a stepping-stone to the more
worldly political realm and such acceptance was granted or denied by
female arbiters. (Morgan 1994: 30)
Women are arbiters, the gatekeepers of ‘Society’, with drawing-rooms

operating as social sieves: by keeping undesirable people out and allowing
the ‘right’ ones in, women’s invitations became a powerful networking
tool (Langland 2001: 126; Young 2003: 133; Wouters 2007: 29).
Therefore, associating these hostesses with the full-time networking career
of French noblewomen is not entirely unfounded.
If anything, Morgan makes a convincing comparison between salon
visitors and courtiers: “People’s relative positions in ‘Society’ were thus as
perpetually precarious as they were at court” (1994: 92). Castiglione’s
courtier was engaged in a continuous competition to win the favour of
52 A. Paternoster
the ruler, because he was well-aware “he could possess no worth in court
society without the omnipotent accoutrement of public approbation”
(Morgan 1994: 101; cfr. the masterly pages on Elizabethan impression
management at court in Whigham 1984). Indeed, “the scramble for rep-
utation was as frenetic in ‘Society’ as at court” (Morgan 1994: 101).
‘Society’ members, therefore, are perpetual performers keen to make an
agreeable impression, just like courtiers before them. What I want to
carry away from Morgan’s analysis of British etiquette books is her view
on the similarities between court society and a competitive and volatile
nineteenth-century capitalist environment, where status is fluid (on
bourgeois “status anxiety”, see Langland 1995: 26, Wouters 2007:
35–37), given the ever-present risk of bankruptcy and financial ruin.
Morgan argues that England’s industrialising society was well-suited to
adopt aristocratic etiquette. For the competitive middle class, to adopt an
aristocratic code is not an “anachronism”, neither is it a return to the past
(1994: 119); on the contrary, conduct books with their insistence on
intrinsic virtue were “backward looking” (1994: 87). In sum, if the upper
middle class is keen to copy aristocrats, they are likely to succeed given
that they have a lot in common from the outset. This, in the end, explains
the nineteenth-century enduring success of etiquette books, to which I
turn in the next section.
2.4 Etiquette Books as a Product

In the remainder of this chapter, the order in which I consider the various
linguacultures under study is based on the chronology of the etiquette
genre, which emerges first in France and in Britain, then in the United
States, then in the Netherlands and, finally, in Italy. In France and in
Britain, the genre emerges at the same time; however, its presence acceler-
ates quicker in Britain. Britain is leading the trend; however, I discuss
France first in order to keep the UK and the US together as the history of
the genre runs parallel in the two countries, not in the least because of
double editions, issued in both countries.
2.4.1 France
I consulted two studies on French etiquette books, Fisher (1992) and the
somewhat popularising Rouvillois (20082), who, curiously, is not aware
of the former.
In France, during the Revolutionary years, only a handful of republi-
can conduct books were printed (Fisher 1992: 168–173; see Vanni 2006:
95–97 for an Italian context). Overall, there was little interest for good
manners, which were linked to the archenemies, the aristocrats. Rouvillois
introduces the term “anti-politesse” ‘antipoliteness’ (20082: 23) to
describe hostile attitudes to good manners during the most radical years
of the Revolution. Politeness and the Revolution were seen as opposites
because deference to one’s superiors contradicted the republican value of
equality. Attempts were made to abolish the use of vous, the deferential
pronoun, in favour of tu, the only pronoun worthy of the French citizen
(Rouvillois 20082: 35). In the Dictionnaire critique et raisonné des étiquettes
de la cour (1818), the Comtesse de Genlis describes the Revolution as the
proverbial seven lean years for etiquette: the lemma bienséances ‘propriety’
observes how the rules were “tout-à-fait abolies depuis l’année 1792
jusqu’à l’an 1800, où l’on commença à en reprendre quelques-unes”
‘completely abolished from the year 1792 until the year 1800, when a few
began to be resumed’ (Genlis, Comtesse de 1818: s.v.). This movement is
at its height in the years 1790–1792, but it already loses influence after
the fall of Robespierre in 1794. The moment Napoleon is crowned
Emperor, the need for court protocol returns—an imperial protocol is
published in 1806, see Chap. 4—and a first etiquette manual appears
soon after in 1808 (Rouvillois 20082: 61). Fisher uses the term “explo-
sion” to describe the subsequent trend in publications (Fisher 1992: 4
and 45):
From the [Napoleonic] Empire to World War I the number of etiquette

book titles appearing was over four times the number appearing during the
previous 100 years. The most remarkable burst in publication took place
during the Second Empire and early Third Republic. Taking new titles and
re-editions together, over 350 etiquette books circulated in France during
the latter half of the century alone. (Fisher 1992: 45)
54 A. Paternoster
Note that Fisher’s term ‘etiquette books’ covers both etiquette and con-
duct books. Although Fisher keeps etiquette books apart from conduct
books in her content analysis (see Sect. 2.2.2), her figures illustrating the
editorial success of the genre regard both categories taken together.
Nevertheless, they are still useful to appreciate the general trend, which is
decidedly upward and is part of a general success registered for all kinds
of how-to publications, such as guides on household management and
recipe books. Rouvillois also gives a comprehensive figure, of several hun-
dreds of books related to the codification of good manners (20082: 76).
For Fisher, the first French etiquette book is the 1832 Manuel de la bonne
compagnie by Mme Celnart, the pseudonym of Élisabeth-Félicie Bayle-
Mouillard, a middle-class author married to a judge. However, my self-
built corpus also contains the earlier Le code de la politesse, ou guide des
jeunes gens dans le monde by Jean Baptiste Joseph Breton de La Martinière,
published in Paris in 1808. Rouvillois quotes this book as the first French
etiquette book (20082: 74, see Fig. 2.1). Only few sources appear in the
1830s and the 1840s, that is, between the Revolutionary period and the
July Monarchy, but the genre takes off mid-century (Fisher 1992: 54).
Fisher estimates a 50–50 split between conduct and etiquette books
(1992: 45). Although the publishing figures were relatively low—only
4000 copies for an etiquette book by the Comtesse de Bassanville
(1867)—most etiquette books enjoy several reprints: Usages du monde
(Staffe, Baronne 189125/1889) had a 131st edition after only 10 years’
time (Fisher 1992: 46).
Meanwhile, as seen in Sect. 2.2.2, new conduct books continued to
propose the contents typical of ancien régime longsellers, like Erasmus
and de la Salle. Against this backdrop of continuity, etiquette books stand
out as a clearly distinct product. They cater for adults and soon “grew to
an average of 350 pages and 600 pages in some of the two-volume guides”
(Fisher 1992: 55). The manual by Baronne d’Orval (19016) surpasses 500
pages. This expansion is explained by the addition of previously unex-
plored topics, but also because the topics were treated in great detail (see
Chap. 5). Etiquette books were published in “in-18 format”, approxi-
mately “seven by four and a half inches in size”, which makes them “easily
carried and manipulated”, almost pocket-size (Fisher 1992: 57). Fisher
highlights the typical “reference book approach”: multiple subheadings, a
Fig. 2.1 Title page (Breton de la Martinière 1808). Reproduced from gallica.bnf.
fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
56 A. Paternoster
detailed table of content, and, at times, an alphabetical index allowed the

reader to “quickly find advice” (1992: 58). Indeed, the more complicated
the material, the bigger the need “for a logical division of material and a
precise ordering of prescriptions” (Fisher 1992: 59). Many publishers
were involved: “No single publisher or small group of publishers monop-
olized the production of etiquette books. In fact, over 80 publishing
houses claimed production of at least one society etiquette book during
the nineteenth century” (Fisher 1992: 62). Many publishers featured at
least one etiquette book because the genre guaranteed risk-free commer-
cial success. Conduct books are printed by Catholic publishers, and their
authors are often clergymen, but the new etiquette genre appears with
non-Catholic houses. Except for the 1850s and the 1860s, the presence
of Catholic publishers was “almost non-existent” (Fisher 1992: 63). This
matters because, as I argue in Chap. 3, while conduct books promote a
moralising, mainly religious view on politeness, etiquette books tend to
be amoral. In my self-built corpus, all sources are published in Paris, with
very few exceptions: a manual by G. F.-M. (1908) published in Tours;
one by Georges Vinet (1891) jointly published in Angers and Paris. The
first edition of Mme Celnart’s manual (1834/1832) was published jointly
in Paris and Lyon.
Authorship is characterised by a general trend towards “feminisation”
as “by the latter third of the century, 70 percent of etiquette book writers
are women” (Fisher 1992: 65). As before, Fisher’s figures cover both eti-
quette and conduct books; however, she specifies that “the elaboration of
the guide du savoir-vivre as a distinct type of etiquette book was in fact
largely the work of women” (1992: 67). Male writers were an exception,
like Alfred de Meilheurat (1852), while Madame A. de La Fère (18897)
was the pseudonym of Gaston Allard (Fisher 1992: 66 and 89). The femi-
nisation is important for the implied reader as women writers tend to
write for women. The percentage of women having aristocratic names is
remarkable: of all the female authors publishing etiquette books between
the 1850s and the early 1870s, 75% used a title (“Comtesse, baronne,
marquise”) or “attached particles to their name”, that is, the particle de
(Fisher 1992: 67). Some were pseudonyms, like Mme de Waddeville
(18877), but others had a genuine aristocratic title, such as the Comtesse
de Bassanville (1867) and the Comtesse Drohojowska (18787, see Fisher
1992: 67). The predominance of aristocratic names and pen names jars
with Fisher’s overarching hypothesis that the etiquette model is deter-
mined by middle-class manners, as seen above. Fisher, however, rightly
observes that the presence of women writers is due to the fact that writing
formed “a means of gainful employment”, at a time when career choices
were extremely limited (1992: 72). On one hand, literacy levels amongst
women had increased. This created a new public, with a new type of
demand. On the other hand, women writers often wrote on topics linked
to the “feminine domain” because those were the topics which the male
cultural establishment was happy to leave to women (Fisher 1992: 71; see
Frau and Gragnani 2011 on this aspect in an Italian context). Fisher pro-
vides precise data about the price of etiquette books, which was rather
prohibitive:
But the average price of an etiquette book at mid-century, about 3F50 and
as much as 5F for some of the two-volume guides, suggests that the pur-
chase of these books was improbable in popular or even lower middle class
milieus. […] The average price suggests that circulation of the bulk of these
books may have been limited to the established or upper bourgeoisie, if not
the aristocracy, that is to say the milieus of the authors themselves. But
there were some less expensive (2F) books and these may have reached the
middle or even lower bourgeoisie. (Fisher 1992: 79–80)
Mme Celnart’s longseller has a Brussels edition in 1849 (Celnart

1849/1832). Madame de La Fère’s manual (1889) is issued jointly in
Paris and in Brussels. These examples show that the publishers consider
Belgium and France as one market for this type of product. The etiquette
bibliography in Fisher (1992) contains two Belgian etiquette books, pub-
lished in Namur and Pithem. The Belgian middle class, in Flanders as
well as in the south of the country, was French-speaking, so it is only
natural they read French etiquette books. I found one Belgian etiquette
book, which is published in Brussels, by Baron O’Sidi (1886/1884), a
probable pseudonym. O’Sidi (1899), a sixth edition, is published in
Ghent, Flanders. Despite my best efforts, I am yet to unearth a Swiss
etiquette book from Italian- or French-speaking Switzerland. This title
from French-speaking Switzerland, L’art d’être aimable. Petit traité de
58 A. Paternoster
savoir-vivre by Émile Julliard (1900) published in Paris and Geneva, has

an author who has written various educational works. This is a hybrid
source: its first half is dedicated to a moralising discourse on politeness
and the second half to La politesse des salons, La politesse en public and La
politesse envers le public ‘politeness of the drawing-room’, ‘politeness in
public’, ‘politeness towards the public’ (Julliard 1900: 78–176).
2.4.2 The United Kingdom
British etiquette books are at the centre of two works, a PhD by Curtin
(1981), which has a 1987 facsimile publication, besides Morgan (1994).
The chronology of British etiquette books is not very dissimilar from
the French one. In an 1837 piece for the Quarterly Abraham Hayward
reviewed 11 titles (Curtin 1981: 47; Weller 2014: 663). UK etiquette
publications took off in the 1830s, the decade which saw the publication
of Celnart (1834/1832) in France, but like French Breton de la Martinière
(1808), in Britain as well there were earlier examples. 1804 saw the pub-
lication of A System of Etiquette by Reverend John Trusler, who, in 1775,
had already authored the Principles of Politeness, a moralising summary of
Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son. The overlaps are numerous, but while the
Principles of Politeness consists of general, moralising advice, the System of
Etiquette offers rules for specific contexts, such as visiting, dining, riding,
letter writing, games and etiquette at court. James Pitt, author of
Instructions in Etiquette ([1840?]3/1828) and “a professor of dancing and
fencing” explains how his text is born in a school context, from questions
asked by pupils. His manual is not easy to navigate as the chapters have
no titles and there is no table of content. However, six years later, in
1834, with William Day’s Hints on Etiquette and the Usages of Society
(18362/1834) “did the etiquette book emerge in its proper form and con-
tinue to be published regularly” (Morgan 1994: 20). In sum, the genre
appears for the first time in 1804, but its commercial success only takes
off in the 1830s. Interestingly, the intermediary years, from the early
1820s to the late 1840s, saw the immense success of the so-called silver-
fork novels, which relished in portraying aristocratic manners in the most
accurate detail (on this fictional genre see Copeland 2012; Boucher
2016). This success played a certain part in alerting publishers to the

commercial value of etiquette (such as Henry Colburn, Morgan 1994:
25). Why precisely etiquette books become frequent in the 1830s is
explained by the Reform Act of 1832 and, more generally, by “the middle
class’s rise to prominence during the early industrial period, or new social
roles for women in the drawing-room” (Morgan 1994: 89; Curtin 1981).
The 1832 Reform Act widened the franchise to the middle class and
relaxed the class barriers as it allowed most middle-class men to be “incor-
porated in the formal political system” (Morgan 1994: 120), creating a
more broadly based ruling class. Since the 1830s, some etiquette publica-
tions enjoyed multiple editions and reprints: “[…] twenty-six editions of
Day’s Hints on Etiquette appeared between 1834 and 1849 and thirty-
three of Etiquette for the Ladies by 1846” (Morgan 1994: 20; Curtin
1981: 58). The detailed and informative Manners and Tone of Good Society
was first issued in the mid-1870s. It enjoyed new editions at an almost
annual rhythm with the slightly altered title Manners and Rules of Good
Society, which had a 48th revised edition in 1929. Overall, the numbers
are impressive:
The Bibliotheca Londinensis of 1848 covered a list of books published in

Britain between 1814 and 1846, and its section on “Morals, Etiquette,
Etc” listed over 430 titles published during those years, although this num-
ber could be even higher since the classification of the titles was somewhat
arbitrary. (Weller 2014: 664)
As for size, “most etiquette books were small pocket-books designed to be

quickly digested and then conveniently nestled on one’s person as a
handy, useful reference” (Morgan 1994: 22), just like in France, although
initially page numbers are much lower than the ones reported by Fisher
(1992), at around 100 pages (two titles in my corpus include the term
“pocket book” or “pocket manual”, see Sect. 2.5.2). The implied reader
was part of the “newly enriched, middle-class adults” (Morgan 1994: 20)
and this is reflected in the price:
The prices of mid-nineteenth-century etiquette books limited their audi-

ence to middle-class social climbers. Such works ranged in price from 6d to
60 A. Paternoster
over 4s, the former price being an exception. Most volumes cost at least a
shilling. (Morgan 1994: 21)
British etiquette books are priced for the pockets of the more affluent
part of the middle class, just like their French counterparts. The overall
majority are published in London, with a few in Halifax, Liverpool,
Glasgow and Edinburgh.
British etiquette books address men as well as women, and the gender
balance in terms of implied readers is fairly even. Several etiquette books
for gentlemen have companion books for ladies: Etiquette for Gentlemen:
Or, the Principles of True Politeness (1852) and Etiquette for Ladies: Or, the
Principles of True Politeness (18522); Etiquette for Gentlemen, Being a
Manual of Minor Social Ethics and Customary Observances ([1857]) and
Etiquette for Ladies, Being a Manual of Minor Social Ethics and Customary
Observances ([1857?]); G. Routledge’s Etiquette for Gentlemen (1864a)
and G. Routledge’s Etiquette for Ladies (1864b); S. O. Beeton’s Complete
Etiquette for Gentlemen ([1876a]) and his Complete Etiquette for Ladies
([1876b]). Most books appeared anonymously, some had a generic
pseudonym, but of the named authors most were male:
An aristocratic author guaranteed sales and authenticity, but no member of

upper-class, fashionable ‘Society’ could afford the stigma of having his or
her name associated with a book so obviously designed to make money.
Real and false aristocrats alike who dared to pen etiquette books hid behind
such generically aristocratic pen-titles as ‘a Man of the World’, ‘an English
Lady of Rank’ or ‘a Member of the Aristocracy’. (Morgan 1994: 21)
Note, indeed, that in Table 2.3 where I list sources of my UK corpus the
author column is half empty, this in contrast with the other subcorpora.
Curtin too mentions the “stigma” that “some authors felt was associated
with the publication of an etiquette book” (1981: 26). He reports on the
exceptional case of a real named aristocrat, Lady Colin Campbell (1893)
who “edited and revised” a former publication by Eliza Cheadle ([1872]).
Note that Eliza Cheadle is only an attributed name, and the Campbell
text is identical to the 1872 edition, and shares the same publisher.
However, Curtin is right to point out that Campbell also translated an
advice text by Baronne Staffe, the famous French etiquette writer, and
therefore, the connection with the etiquette book is not entirely unrealis-
tic. Indeed, from the 1890s onwards, named female authors started to
appear, such as Charlotte Eliza Humphry (18972), Lucie Heaton
Armstrong (1903, [1908]), Flora Klickmann (1915), “practicing journal-
ists” who ran etiquette columns in women’s magazines (Curtin 1981:
27). The number of single titles, reprints and new editions show that
“readership was substantial” (Curtin 1981: 59). No doubt, sales too were
substantial. A plagiarism case brought by Charles William Day in 1837
quoted a sale of 12,000 copies of his Hints on Etiquette since 1834 (Weller
2014: 665, see also Curtin 1981: 32–33).
2.4.3 The United States
Rouvillois concludes his chapter on French anti-politesse with a reflection

on its aftermath in the United States (20082: 62–66). Whilst the American
antipoliteness sentiment is not as virulent as in France, it goes on for lon-
ger, forming “un véritable courant” ‘a proper movement’ (20082: 65) with
spearhead figures such as Mark Twain. Rouvillois cites How to Behave: A
Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette (Roberts 1857), which criticizes
deference to superiors as unamerican (Rouvillois 20082: 64). Indeed, the
paragraph Equality condemns “artificial distinctions” between “human
beings and fellow citizens” (Roberts 1857: 54). American sources often
discuss differences with continental etiquette, and these discussions usu-
ally bear on precedence and titles. US books generally uphold the princi-
ple of precedence, only, it is based, not on birth right, but on age and
marital status. At any rate, Roberts’ (1857) declarations on equality do not
stop him from including a paragraph on dinner precedence (see Chap. 7).
A well-informed study on US etiquette is the monograph by Kasson,
who dates the initial successes of the genre back to the 1830s, from where
they “swelled to a torrent between 1870 and the turn of the century”
(1990: 5). The earliest sources I found are indeed from the 1830s: The
Laws of Etiquette or, Short Rules and Reflections for Conduct in Society. By a
Gentleman (18362); A Manual of Politeness: Comprising the Principles of
Etiquette, and Rules of Behaviour in Genteel Society for Persons of Both Sexes
(1837). Like other scholars (Fisher 1992: 45; Morgan 1994: 34), Kasson
cites advances in printing as a reason contributing to the success of the
62 A. Paternoster
genre. Technical innovations created an abundance of reading material

and a sharp reduction in prices, a development which mainly impacted
on the middle classes (Kasson 1990: 37). Mass production promoted
instructional literature of any kind, including etiquette books, allowing
the “social aspirant” to “climb the social ladder to new heights” (Kasson
1990: 43). Kasson quotes an etiquette scholar, Schlesinger (1947), who,
although handling a broad definition of the genre of advice literature,
claims that from the 1830s onwards an average of three new manuals
appeared annually, a figure that grew to five or six a year between the
Civil War and World War I. A bibliography of American etiquette books
published before 1900 lists 236 separate titles (Kasson 1990: 265, quot-
ing Bobbitt Reed 1947). Kasson himself (1990) includes a selected bibli-
ography of over 150 titles. The numbers are certainly impressive, although
not dissimilar from the ones seen for France and Britain. In the three
countries there are parallel developments, which gain momentum in the
1830s and peak in the second half of the century. As seen above, most
publishers issued at least one etiquette book—“often compiled by the
publishers themselves”—as a testimony to the “popularity and profitabil-
ity” of the genre (Kasson 1990: 44). Main publication centra were Boston,
Philadelphia, New York; some books were issued in the Midwest; none in
the South (Kasson 1990: 44). Many were distributed by direct-mail ser-
vices and by the subscription book trade (Kasson 1990: 44–45). Some
items were expensive—the volumes with most pages, 600 and more, such
as Moore (18782) and Cooke (1899/1896)—but others aimed at the
lower end of the market with shorter books, for example, Beadle’s Dime
Book of Practical Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen (1859), counting a
mere 72 pages. Kasson also notes how authorship became increasingly
American, that is, non-British; however, because of the “lack of interna-
tional copyright agreement”, unauthorised publications of English books
continued in the US, although the numbers “declined steadily” (Kasson
1990: 47). Interestingly, Kasson (1990: 47) identifies an early translation
of a French work, no other than Mme Celnart (1833), the second French
etiquette book to be published, in 1832. It shows a market eager to jump
on a brand-new trend, and it makes the case for a parallel emergence in
the three countries considered so far.
Kasson gives a detailed overview of etiquette authors (1990: 48–53).

Of the sources he considered, “approximately half appeared anonymously
or pseudonymously” (Kasson 1990: 48). Generic pseudonyms indicate
higher social status, like “an American lady”, “a gentleman”, “a member
of New York’s most exclusive social circles” (Kasson 1990: 48). When real
names are known, they reveal a variety of backgrounds, for example, “edi-
tors and columnists for women’s and juvenile magazines”, “book and
magazine publishers”, “college professors and schoolteachers”, “clergy-
men”, “businessmen” and “leaders of fashionable society” including “sev-
eral daughters of congressmen” (Kasson 1990: 48). Overall, there were
“slightly more women than men” (Kasson 1990: 48). For middle-class
women, writing was one of the few professional options available. Kasson
discusses two authors who are part of my self-built corpus. Samuel Robert
Wells (1820–1875), writing under the pseudonym Roberts, studied
medicine and started a career in writing and publishing on the popular
topic of phrenology, whilst running the thriving publishing house of
Fowler and Wells (Kasson 1990: 50). Besides How to behave
(Roberts 1857), he authored How to Read Character (Wells 1869), a phre-
nology manual enjoying at least 13 reprints until 1899.1 After 1870 more
female authors of “fashionable society” turned to etiquette writing
(Kasson 1990: 51). This is two decades earlier than in the UK. Clara
Sophia Jessup Moore, a “wealthy and socially prominent Philadelphian”,
wrote fiction and poetry, but was known as “one of the most influential
writers on etiquette of the late nineteenth century through works such as
Sensible Etiquette of the Best Society (first published in 1878 under the
pseudonym of Mrs. H. O. Ward and continuing through twenty edi-
tions)” (Kasson 1990: 51, in reference to James, Wilson and Boyer 1971:
s.v. Bloomfield-Moore, Clara Sophia Jessup). As in the UK, in the later
years of the century, female journalists started to write etiquette books.
Marion Harland co-wrote an etiquette book with her daughter Virginia
Van de Water (1905). Harland was a prolific writer of novels, books on
domestic economy and essays for magazines. Overall, in terms of
1
As listed on https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Wells%2C%
20Samuel%20R%2E%20%28Samuel%20Roberts%29%2C%201820%2D1875, last accessed
5.11.2021.
64 A. Paternoster
readership, some etiquette books addressed children and young people,

two sources addressed black readers, but most were written for a mostly
young white middle-class reader, who, after reading the book, might
expect “to master the usages of what writers variously called ‘good’,
‘polite’, ‘refined’ and ‘fashionable’ society” (Kasson 1990: 55). While the
cost of fulfilling the recommendations, especially in later publications,
was one only the elite could afford, the bottom line was usually drawn at
the presence of at least one servant.
2.4.4 The Netherlands
Two studies were very helpful, Dongelmans (1999) and Hesseling (2015).
I also enjoyed reading Montijn (20006), a popularising account, which
relies heavily on etiquette books to recreate middle-class life in the
nineteenth-century Netherlands.
Dongelmans (1999: 95) highlights the importance of translations for
Dutch etiquette books. He includes numerous conduct books in his bib-
liographic overview of “etiquetteboeken” ‘etiquette books’, going back as
far as 1801; however, in my opinion, it is only in 1836 that the first eti-
quette book appears in Dutch, the anonymous Lessen over de wellevend-
heid naar de vijfde Fransche uitgave, which Dongelmans correctly identifies
as a translation of the French Manuel de la bonne compagnie by Mme
Celnart (18552/[1836]). The novelty of Celnart’s 1832 work, it appears,
galvanises publishers, not only in the US, but also in the Netherlands.
Like in the countries seen so far, Dutch etiquette books emerge in the
1830s. The first Dutch original is an anonymous Handboek der wellevend-
heid of praktische gids om zich in gezelschappen en alle omstandigheden des
levens te gedragen als iemand van beschaafde manieren (1855), followed by
two translations from English: the Lessen over de wellevendheid voor heeren.
Naar het Engelsch is a translation from Routledge (1864a), as I discovered,
and Routledge’s companion volume for women (1864b) is also translated.
In the second half of the century etiquette production was limited to
about one book per decade, but it increased in the twentieth century. Even
then, translations keep appearing. De vrouw “comme il faut” (1900/1897)
is based on a book in German, Die Frau comme il faut (1895) published in
Vienna by Austrian author Natalie Bruck-Auffenberg. Verlaane
(1911/1885) mentions the Comtesse de Gencé as her source, the author

of Savoir-vivre et nouveaux usages mondains: en famille et en société (1908).
Jonkvrouw Van Rappard (19123/1885), however, does not quote a source,
but, as I discovered, she translates British How to behave ([1865/1852]).
French and English source texts appear to be represented evenly.
Both Donglemans and Hesseling include bibliographic lists that claim
to be exhaustive. Dongelmans arrives at 37 different titles between 1800
and 1899, but over half are conduct books. Hesseling bases her list on
Donglemans, and extends it with the holdings of the Heijting Collection.
One of the Special Collections held by the University of Amsterdam, it is
“currently the largest one available in the Netherlands” and “boasts over
one hundred texts that discuss matters concerning housekeeping, cook-
ing and manners” (Hesseling 2015: 20). Hesseling’s total is 87, but, like
Dongelmans, she includes conduct books and she also lists every extant
edition of separate titles: eight, for example, for van de Mandele’s Wetboek
van Mevrouw Etiquette ([1910]8/[1893]. In my opinion, a figure of 15
etiquette titles is accurate: my self-built corpus includes 13 digital texts
(see Table 2.5). Of two sources I was not able to retrieve a digital copy:
Lessen over de wellevendheid voor dames. Naar het Engelsch ([Routledge]
18822/1869) and Johanna van Woude’s Vormen. Handboek voor dames
(1898). Hesseling’s detailed overview of publishers covers both conduct
and etiquette books, and is less useful, but she includes an interesting
anecdote about academic publisher Brill:
Leiden’s famous publisher, Brill, […] specialised in areas of study that the
University of Leiden focussed on, such as theology and Asian languages.
However, by 1848, when the company was passed on to E.J. Brill, it was in
financial difficulties. In order to relieve financial pressure, Brill began to
publish texts outside of the company’s usual genres. When the company
sold part of its shares to the public in 1896 and began to publish manuals
of all kinds [sic], including etiquette books such as De Vrouw ‘Comme Il
Faut’ by Bruck-Auffenberg, and eventually military manuals for the
Germans. (Hesseling 2015: 32)2
2
Brill’s own website displays some examples, with colour pictures of front pages, see https://schol-
arlyeditions.brill.com/reader/urn:cts:brillLit:brill.brill325.se-ed-eng01:87/ (last accessed
6.11.2021).
66 A. Paternoster
As seen above, publishers considered etiquette books reliable investments.

Dutch etiquette books, indeed, enjoyed reasonable commercial success.
Most titles attracted multiple editions, at an average of two or three, with
a peak of eight for Van der Mandele ([1910]8/[1893]). However, Stratenus
(1887) and van Woude (1898) are stuck at one edition. Books were adver-
tised in newspapers (see also Morgan 1994 and Weller 2014 on ‘puffing’):
The same advertisement for Het Wetboek van Mevrouw Etiquette was printed
in a variety of national and local newspapers in the 1890s, such as Kleine
Courant, Middelburgsche Courant, De Tijd, and De Telegraaf. They all con-
tain advertisements for the book, including a list of the chapter headings as
well as the prices (paperback: ƒ1.75, hardcover: ƒ2.25). Not only were
prices and availability advertised, but books were also reviewed in journals
and newspapers. (Hesseling 2015: 36)
Etiquette books have hardback and paperback editions, which means

that they cater for two types of publics with different buying power:
The small size of these books (octavos), as well as the fact that they were
available in various bindings, indicate that they were made to be portable
and for customers who had a varying amount to spend. […] For example,
most nineteenth-century Dutch etiquette books in the Heijting collection
are either octavos or quartos. (Hesseling 2015: 39)
As seen above, books tend to be of a small size and are portable. As for
authorship, no named male authors write etiquette books and named
female authors dominate, with a small minority of anonymous works.
Two authors are aristocratic, Jonkvrouw H. A van Rappard and Louise
Stratenus; Marguérite de Viroyflay-Montrecourt appears to be the pen-
name of H. W. van Tienhoven-Mulder (Wouters 2004: 176), who also
writes children’s literature with the pseudonym of Willy Pétillon.
Stratenus, who grows up in an aristocratic environment, lived a cosmo-
politan existence between London, Paris, Brussels and Stockholm. A real
polygraph, she tried to eke out an existence by publishing two novels a
year, besides translating from French, English and German. Her novels
were not successful, although recently she is at the centre of renewed
attention (van Berkum 2018). She fully belongs to this first wave of
female journalists and polygraphs who use writing to build a professional

career. Most authors are obscure, except for Johanna van Woude. Editor-
in-chief of women’s magazine De Hollandsche Lelie between 1889 and
1897, she also wrote literary works and was one of the first women to
enter the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde, ‘Society of Dutch
Literature’, in 1893.
2.4.5 Italy
Tasca (2004) is a particularly well-informed study on Italian conduct and

etiquette books in the nineteenth century, while Villani (2018) is a liter-
ary critic, who excels in unravelling the links between Matilde Serao’s
etiquette book Saper vivere (Gibus del Mattino 1900) and her vast jour-
nalistic and literary oeuvre.
While aforementioned estimates on the production of conduct books
and etiquette books put forward a tentative 50–50% split, the Italian
numbers could not be more different. Tasca (2004) includes an appendix
listing no fewer than 186 original titles for the long nineteenth century,
resulting in at least 450 reprints and new editions. Of those 186 different
titles, only 10 were etiquette books, which, nevertheless, still generated
over 70 new editions and reprints before 1920. In Italy, etiquette books
emerged in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, when the mar-
ket was dominated by conduct books, the so-called galatei, which were
very successful until 1880. The very first etiquette book is published in
1877, La gente per bene by Marchesa ‘marchioness’ Colombi.
Italian etiquette books were predominantly written by women. In
Italy, famous etiquette writers were the novelists Marchesa Colombi
(pseudonym of Maria Antonietta Torriani, who left over 40 books),
Matilde Serao (who uses the penname Gibus3 del Mattino, one of four
newspapers she founded with her then husband Edoardo Scarfoglio) and
Jolanda (marchioness Maria Majocchi Plattis). Others were prolific jour-
nalists, like Anna Vertua Gentile, Emilia Nevers (pseudonym of Emilia
Luzzatto, who translated Émile Zola) and Mantea (pseudonym of count-
ess Maria Luigia Carolina Sobrero). Either widowed or separated, they
3
A collapsible top hat or so-called opera hat.
68 A. Paternoster
wrote to support themselves financially. Caterina Pigorini Beri—the only

married writer—was well-published on the folklore of Calabria and the
Marche. Villani (2018: 90 and 142–147) provides detailed accounts of
how Matilde Serao and Maria Antonietta Torriani worked the influential
drawing-rooms of Milan, Rome and Naples to forge powerful networks
that advanced their professional writing careers. Because most authors
were professional writers, Italian etiquette books stand out by an engag-
ing style, which is often entertaining and tongue-in-cheek.
Mantea and Jolanda are of aristocratic origin, whilst others (Il Conte
Bergando and Marchesa Colombi) use aristocratic pennames. Often eti-
quette books are dedicated to aristocrats, which is another indication of
their ideal readership, covering the “border zone between aristocracy and
bourgeoisie” (Tasca 2004: 145). Two authors, Alberto Grossotti and
Filiberto Iviglia, write on etiquette for army officers: when the recruit-
ment of officers became merit-based, often the new recruits were found
to be lacking the necessary social skills to mix with their aristocratic peers
(Benadusi 2015). Except for Serao, who publishes in Naples, all authors
are from the North and they publish in Milan, Turin and Bologna. As a
product, etiquette books are more expensive than Italian conduct books:
they have more pages, are of a bigger format, present a more varied typo-
graphic composition, often include a ribbon marker and have nicely
decorated hard covers. Page numbers are, indeed, quite high, with Vertua
Gentile’s 1897 work reaching 460 pages and Jolanda’s 1909 work no less
than 600. As seen for the Dutch market, some sources have hardback and
paperback editions. Tasca cites two examples (2004: 145): Vertua Gentile
(1897) costs either 4 Lire or 5.5; Pigorini Beri (1908/1893) 2 Lire and
2.80, whereas conduct books are priced between 25 cents and 1 Lira.
Tasca concludes that, although they are not fully a luxury item, etiquette
books have been put together with more care than conduct books (2004:
145). These are cleverly commercialised products, often benefitting from
the marketing machine that is behind successful women’s magazines such
as the Giornale delle donne or Bazar: Marchesa Colombi’s Gente per bene
(1877) and Nevers’ Galateo della borghesia (1883) were offered as comple-
mentary copies to readers on the renewal of their subscription. Many
Italian women’s magazines included columns about etiquette and man-
ners (Tasca 2004: 152–153): Villani extensively documents the links
between Serao’s Saper vivere and her society column I mosconi, which she
kept running for no less than 40 years (2018: 154). The sources are unde-
niably successful editorial products, with Marchesa Colombi (1877),
Nevers (1883), Mantea (1897) and Vertua Gentile (1897) all enjoying
between 10 and 14 new editions and reprints before 1920. However, it is
likely that the figures are higher. The 1901 edition of Marchesa Colombi’s
Gente per bene states that this is the 27th one, although puffing of the
numbers cannot be excluded (see Paternoster 2019, 2021).
2.4.6 Conclusion
Section 2.4 offers the first comprehensive overview of the historical eti-
quette book in Western cultures, from the US to Italy, via Britain, the
Netherlands and France. A comparative approach pays obvious dividends
because the consistency in the history of etiquette books as a product is
high, on more than one front:
• Chronology
American, British, French and Dutch etiquette books emerge in the
1830s, with France and Britain having a forerunner at the beginning
of the century. In Britain production is strong earlier, from the 1830s
onwards. In Britain, France and the US, production peaks in the sec-
ond half of the century, and scholars use terms such as ‘explosion’ or
‘torrent’ to describe the trend. In Italy and the Netherlands production
is somewhat delayed as it peaks in the decennia that straddle the begin-
ning of the twentieth century. Note the remarkable case of Mme
Celnart’s 1832 text, which is almost immediately translated in English
and in Dutch, showing how publishers identified an international
novelty and were keen to bank on the phenomenon.
• Editorial fortunes
Many books enjoy several reprints and/or new editions and a few man-
age to be ‘longsellers’, accumulating over 20 or 30 reprints and/or new
editions. Although books are updated, it strikes me as important that
a book stays relevant for ca. 60 years, as is the case for Manners and
Tone of Good Society ([1880]2/1879]). This points to etiquette as being
70 A. Paternoster
a conservative, monolithic system of rules, even if new topics were

added over the years.
• The Book as a material object
–– Price. Out of reach for the petty bourgeoisie, books mainly cater for
the established bourgeoisie and upward. For Italy and the
Netherlands there is evidence of double editions, with paperbacks
extending affordability.
–– Page numbers. While British books tend to be shorter, at about 100
pages initially, they eventually become longer: Armstrong ([1908])
counts 301 pages. Overall, books of 300 or even 600 pages are not
an exception, and this is reflected in the price.
–– Popular formats are 18mo (4 × 6.5 inches), 8vo (6 × 9 inches), 4to
(9.5 × 12 inches). Books are pocket size or almost pocket size.
–– Reference use is illustrated by detailed tables of content or alpha-
betical indices. Some books are dictionaries: Chambon (1907) and
Baron O’Sidi (1886/1884).
• Publishers
Many French, UK and US publishers feature at least one etiquette
book in their catalogue as a risk-free investment. In the US and Italy,
there is a predominance of certain cities, resp. on the East coast and in
the north. UK and French editors are based in the capital cities. The
13 Dutch sources of the corpus are published in eight different cities,
of which four in Amsterdam.
• Authors
In France, Italy, and the Netherlands, say, on the European mainland,
there is a general trend towards female authorship. In France, aristo-
cratic authors or aristocratic pennames dominate. In Italy and the
Netherlands, aristocratic names and pennames are important, but they
do not form a majority. In the UK most books are anonymous or have
a generic penname, but named authors are mostly male. The US has a
slight predominance of named female authors. This changes towards
the end of the century when etiquette becomes the domain of female
journalists, who often run successful etiquette columns: Charlotte
Eliza Humphry, Flora Klickmann, Lucie Heaton Armstrong, Marion
Harland, Louise Stratenus, Johanna van Woude and all the Italian
writers were prolific journalists and/or novelists and form part of that
first-generation of professional female writers who write for women
and children, banking on increased levels of literacy.
• Readers
It is hard to gather precise information about readers. High volumes of
etiquette books were produced and bought, so interest is substantial.
Tasca makes an interesting remark about the frequent borrowing of
books, which means that every figure regarding sales must be multiplied
to appreciate full impact (2004: 52). With female authors, the implied
reader is mainly a woman, as nineteenth-century women typically write
for women. In the US and the UK the gender balance appears more
even. The readers belong to the established bourgeoisie and upwards, as
indicated by the price and the quality of the front covers.
In sum, rather than it being a case of etiquette books originating in a

specific country and spreading subsequently to others, arguably, there is
a parallel development taking place around the 1830s. While British pro-
duction is high from the outset, France and the US catch up mid-century.
As a result, it is hard to maintain that the success of the genre is due to a
single trigger event, such as the UK Reform Act of 1832, as mentioned
by Curtin and Morgan, who both express due scepticism about this
hypothesis. While it probably contributes to the sudden expansion of the
genre in the 1830s in Britain, the Reform Act cannot explain its longev-
ity. It is probably safe to say that the 1830s and its wave of revolutions in
Europe initiate a process of transition towards moderate constitutional
reform, putting the middle class in a position to reap the full benefits of
industrialisation, without any further big international conflicts until
World War I (see Evans 2016: 1–84 on the devastation caused by the
Napoleonic wars). Italy and the Netherlands are the exceptions confirm-
ing the rule. With a late unification and a late industrial revolution,
Italian etiquette books are only emerging after 1877, and the same is true
for the Netherlands, where the industrialisation is delayed until after
1850. Other factors were technical advances in book production and dis-
tribution, leading to mass production and lower prices, and increasing
levels of literacy in women.
72 A. Paternoster
2.5 A Self-built Digital Corpus

of Etiquette Books
Besides being a first study adopting a broad comparative approach, this
monograph is also the first making use of a digital etiquette corpus. My
self-built corpus is composed of public domain texts drawn from digi-
tal libraries: Google Books, Internet Archive, Gallica.fr, British library,
Project Gutenberg and Delpher.nl. These libraries allow to download
PDFs or txt files, which were uploaded in the corpus toolbox Sketch
Engine, https://app.sketchengine.eu, as five separate corpora, US English,
UK English, French, Italian and Dutch. Sketch Engine provides auto-
matic Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for PDFs. The OCR is of
excellent quality for English and French, and good for Dutch sources. The
Italian corpus of etiquette books forms part of CGIO, Corpus di galatei
italiani dell’Ottocento, ‘corpus of 19th-century Italian conduct books’, a
corpus of ca. 50 texts comprising ca. 40 conduct books and 10 etiquette
books, which was compiled by myself and Francesca Saltamacchia. The
compilation of the corpus was financed by a research grant of the Swiss
National Science Foundation.4 All books in CGIO were photographed
in situ, they were transformed into editable text with the OCR software
ABBYY FineReader 12 Corporate and manually corrected.
As seen in Sects. 2.4.4 and 2.4.5, the total numbers for Dutch and
Italian etiquette books are relatively low. As a result, the respective cor-
pora can at least aim for exhaustivity. The Italian corpus contains, as far
as I am aware, all known etiquette books till World War I, while for the
Dutch corpus I am confident to have the grand majority of sources, with
the exception of two. Both the Italian and the Dutch corpus are about
half the size of the other corpora, at ca. half a million words each.
For the other linguacultures, as seen in Sect. 2.4, the number of publi-
cations is vast, and there are a lot more digital resources available; there-
fore, I was able to make a representative selection. For decades where
4
Project Le ragioni della cortesia. La nascita della cortesia contemporanea nella trattatistica comporta-
mentale italiana dell’Ottocento. ‘The reasons for politeness. The birth of contemporary politeness in
the behavioural treatises of 19th century Italy’, nr. 100012_153031, ran from 2014 to 2019. See
https://p3.snf.ch/project-153031. Access to the datafiles in CGIO is via https://doi.
org/10.48656/8yy9-q179.
there are only a few sources, I included what was available. For decades
where the genre was successful, I aimed to achieve an even distribution
across decades. For example, in France, the success of the genre is delayed
until the second half of the nineteenth century: the corpus contains only
four sources before 1870, but this is compensated by 19 sources to cover
the decades in which the genre peaked (for which there is also an increased
online availability). For the US, there are so many sources available on
Archive.org that I was able to maintain a very even distribution of about
two sources per decade, from the 1830s onwards. The UK sources, as
seen above, typically contain less pages, and to reach a number of words
roughly comparable to the US-English and French corpus, more texts
were included. I did not find many digital UK resources after 1900, and
this was compensated by two books, Klickmann (1915) and Armstrong
([1908]), which I bought online for a reasonable price.5 They were not
scanned given their fragile condition and I use them for qualitative analy-
sis only. Overall, the corpus aims at balancing the total number of words,
the number of single titles and online availability (which can be assumed
to roughly mirror publication success).
The subcorpora have different start dates, depending on when the
genre emerged in the respective countries. The end point is World War I,
only the US corpus includes one text from 1919. The working hypothesis
is that World War I reduced the public’s interest in etiquette, it gave the
final blow to the aristocratic predominance in Europe and the genre also
suffered from competition with women’s magazines. Chapter 4 will show
that the frequency of the word ‘etiquette’ and its translations starts to
decline in large historical corpora towards the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury and the beginning of the twentieth century. I also take into account
Wouter’s (2007) argument who sees the Fin de siècle and the ‘roaring
Twenties’ as periods of informalisation (see Sect. 1.1). A non-negligeable
factor is that after World War I, texts are increasingly protected by copy-
right, like Klickmann (1915).
Table 2.1 shows the number of sources and words per linguaculture
under investigation—the total wordcount is retrieved from Sketch Engine:
5
Some books are collector’s items. A copy of Parr (1892) was for sale on Abebooks.com for US$
271 (accessed 17.11.2021).
74 A. Paternoster
Table 2.1 Word count and number of books, in the subcorpora and in total
US-English sources 1,069,045 words 18 books
UK-English sources 918,565 words 28 books
French sources 1,266,197 words 23 books
Dutch sources 497,752 words 13 books
Italian sources 585,135 words 10 books
Total 4,336,694 words 92 books
Tables 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 list the texts included in the various
subcorpora, respecting the same chronological order used in Sect. 2.4.
For every table, I discuss source retrieval.
2.5.1 The French Corpus
Table 2.2 contains the French corpus.6

All sources are retrieved from Gallica.fr, the digital library of the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ with one excep-
tion. The OCR output for early editions of Mme Celnart was disappoint-
ing and the corpus uses an 1849 edition retrieved from Google Books,
https://books.google.com/.
Whilst for the two English language corpora I based the retrieval of the
sources on the search term ‘etiquette’, for the French corpus using étiquette
proved challenging. The term that comes closest in meaning is savoir-
vivre (see also Sect. 3.4.4); however, French conduct titles also use the
term savoir-vivre. As seen above, Fisher (1992) distinguishes between eti-
quette books, guides de savoir-vivre, and conduct books, civilités. In
Fisher’s bibliography (1992), the term savoir-vivre appears in 28 etiquette
titles; nevertheless, it also appears in 12 conduct titles, where it has the
meaning of politesse ‘politeness’ and civilité ‘civility’. The term étiquette
only appears in two of Fishers’ etiquette titles (and in no conduct title,
1992). My French corpus does not have a single title containing the word
étiquette. While the Thesaurus function in Sketch Engine, in Sect. 3.4.4,
will show that savoir-vivre has politesse as a synonym, confirming the
6
In the following tables and in the Primary Texts section of the bibliographical references, square
brackets indicate that author names and publication years are attributed.
Table 2.2 The French corpus

Le code de la politesse, ou guide des Jean Baptiste Joseph 1808
jeunes gens dans le monde Breton de La
Martinière
Nouveau manuel complet de la bonne Mme Celnart 1849/1832
compagnie ou guide de la politesse et de [Élisabeth-Félicie
la bienséance dédiée à la Société Bayle-Mouillard ]
française et à la jeunesse des deux sexes
Manuel du savoir-vivre, ou l’Art de se Alfred de 1852
conduire Selon les convenances et les Meilheurat
usages du monde Dans toutes les
circonstances de la vie et dans les
diverses régions de la société
Code du cérémonial. Guide des gens du Anaïs, Comtesse de 1867
monde dans toutes les circonstances de Bassanville
la vie:
Manuel de la politesse des usages du Mme J.-J. Lambert [1870?]
monde et du savoir-vivre [Jules Rostaing]
De l’usage et de la politesse dans le La Baronne de 18707
monde Fresne
Le vrai manuel du savoir-vivre: conseils sur La Comtesse de 1877
la politesse et les usages du monde Boissieux
De la politesse et du bon ton, ou Devoirs Antoinette- 18787
d’une femme chrétienne dans le monde Joséphine-
Françoise-Anne,
Comtesse de
Drohojowska
Guide-manuel de la civilité française, ou Paul Burani 1879
Nouveau code de la politesse et du
savoir-vivre: indiquant la manière de se
conduire comme il faut chez soi, dans le
monde et dans toutes les circonstances
de la vie; etc.
Traité de la politesse et du savoir-vivre: Jules Clément 1879
nouveau guide pour apprendre à
connaître et à pratiquer tous les usages
du monde, à s’y conduire suivant les
règles de la bienséance ainsi que dans les
principales circonstances de la vie etc.
Le savoir-vivre dans la vie ordinaire et Ermance Dufaux de [1878–1888]6
dans les cérémonies civiles et religieuses La Jonchère
(continued)
76 A. Paternoster
Table 2.2 (continued)
Les usages du monde, le savoir-vivre et la 1880

politesse chez soi, en visite, en soirée, au
théâtre. En Voiture, en Voyage, pour
recevoir, pour donner un repas, les
usages dans toutes les cérémonies,
naissance, baptême, mariage. Suite de
Conférences par un homme du monde.
Suivi du Guide pour la danse du cotillon
Notions de politesse et de savoir-vivre: J. B. C. 1882

recueillies par un grand-père, J. B. C.
pour ses petits-enfants
Catéchisme du bon ton et des usages du Mme L. de Nogent 1886
monde
Le monde et ses usages Mme de Waddeville 18877
Savoir vivre, savoir parler, savoir écrire, à Mme A. de La Fère 18897
l’usage des gens du monde [Gaston Allard]
La représentation commerciale; Les Georges Vinet 1891
voyageurs de commerce; La politesse; Le
savoir-vivre
L’Usage et le Bon Ton de nos Jours Catherine Parr 1892
Le guide de la femme du monde: usages La Marquise de 1898
du monde dans la société moderne; Pompeillan
précédé du Guide de la jeune fille; suivi
du Guide de l’homme du monde
Usages mondains: guide du savoir-vivre Baronne d’Orval 19016

moderne dans toutes les circonstances de
la vie
Dictionnaire du Savoir-Vivre M. Chambon 1907
Manuel de politesse à l’usage de la F. G.-M. 1908
jeunesse: Savoir-vivre, Savoir-parler,
Savoir-écrire, Savoir-travailler
Le Guide mondain. Art moderne du La Comtesse de 1910
savoir-vivre Magallon
Table 2.3 The UK-English corpus

A System of Etiquette John Trusler 1804
Hints on Etiquette and the Usages of Society: William 18362/1834
With a Glance at Bad Habits. By Ἀγωγος Charles Day
The Pocket Book of Etiquette and Vade-Mecum Arthur 1837
of the Observances of Society Freeling
The Spirit of Etiquette; Or, Politeness Lady de 1837
exemplified. S******
Etiquette for the Ladies: Eighty Maxims on 183816/1837
Dress, Manners, and Accomplishments.
Etiquette for Gentlemen: With Hints on the Art 1838
of Conversation
Instructions in Etiquette Intended for the Use of James Pitt [1840?]3/1828
Schools and Young Persons
Etiquette of Courtship and Marriage N. Y. E. 1844
The Book of Fashionable Life: Comprising the [1845]2
Etiquette of the Drawing-Room, Dining-Room,
and Ball-Room by a Member of the Royal
Household.
Court Etiquette; A Guide to Intercourse With [1849]
Royal or Titled Persons, to Drawing-Rooms,
Levees, Courts, and Audiences, the Usages of
Social Life, the Formal Modes of Addressing
Letters, Memorials and Petitions, the Rules of
Precedence, the Composition of Dedications,
the Conduct of Public Meetings, and Every
Other Formality of Business or Pleasure. By a
Man of the World.
Etiquette of the Ball-room, and Guide to the Nicholas [1850?]
New and Fashionable Dances, Etc. Containing Henderson,
the Steps and Figures of Quadrilles, Valses, Mrs.
Polkas, Galops, Mazourkas, Country Dances,
Etc.; With Hints and Instructions Respecting
Toilet and Deportment.
The Ladies’ Science of Etiquette. By a Lady. 18512
Etiquette for Ladies: Or, the Principles of True 1852
Politeness
Etiquette for Gentlemen: Or, the Principles of 1852
True Politeness.
A Manual of Etiquette for Ladies: Or, True 1856
Principles of Politeness. By a lady.
Etiquette for Ladies, Being a Manual of Minor [1857?]
Social Ethics and Customary Observances.
(continued)
78 A. Paternoster
Etiquette for Gentlemen, Being a Manual of [1857]

Minor Social Ethics and Customary
Observances.
The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook of [1859]
Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen. With
Thoughts, Hints, and Anecdotes Concerning
Social Observances; Nice Points of Taste and
Good Manners; And the Art of Making
One’s-Self Agreeable. The Whole Interspersed
with Humorous Illustrations of Social
Predicaments; Remarks on the History and
Changes of Fashion; And the differences of
English and Continental Etiquette.
The Hand-Book of Etiquette: Being a Complete 1860
Guide to the Usages of Polite Society.
Etiquette for All, or Rules of Conduct for Every 1861
Circumstance in Life: With the Laws, Rules,
Precepts, and Practices of Good Society.
How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Etiquette, [1865/1852]
and Guide to Correct Personal Habits.
Manners of Modern Society: Being a Book of [Eliza [1872]
Etiquette. Cheadle]
Routledge’s Manual of Etiquette George [1875?]
Routledge
and Sons
Beeton’s Manners of Polite Society; Or, Etiquette Samuel [1876c]
for Ladies, Gentlemen and Families… Orchart
Beeton
Manners and Tone of Good Society: Or, [1880]2/
Solecisms to Be Avoided. By a member of the [1879]
aristocracy.
Modern Etiquette in Public and Private Including 1887/[1871]
Society at Large, the Etiquette of Weddings,
the Ball-Room, the Dinner-Table, the Toilet, &c.
&c.
Manners for Men Charlotte 18972
Eliza
Humphry
Etiquette and Entertaining Lucie Heaton 1903
Armstrong
Table 2.4 The US-English corpus

The Laws of Etiquette or, Short Rules and 18362
Reflections for Conduct in Society. By a
Gentleman
A Manual of Politeness: Comprising the 1837
Principles of Etiquette, and Rules of Behaviour
in Genteel Society for Persons of Both Sexes
Etiquette or, a Guide to Usages of Society with a Charles William 1843
Glance at Bad Habits. By Count Alfred d’Orsay. Day
To which is Added the Only True Theory of the
Rhenish or Spanish Waltz and of the German
Waltz à Deux Temps. Analyzed and Explained
for the First Time
True Politeness. A Handbook of Etiquette for 1847
Ladies. By an American Lady
How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Samuel Roberts 1857
Etiquette, and Guide to Correct Personal [Samuel Robert
Habits, Embracing an Exposition of the Wells]
Principles of Good Manners
Beadle’s Dime Book of Practical Etiquette for 1859
Ladies and Gentlemen: Being a Guide to True
Gentility and Good-Breeding, and a Complete
Directory to the Usages and Observances of
Society
The Gentlemen’s Book of Etiquette, And Manual Cecil B. Hartley 1860a
of Politeness. Being a Complete Guide for a
Gentleman’s Conduct in All His Relations
Towards Society
The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, And Manual of Florence Hartley 1860b
Politeness. A Complete Hand Book for the Use
of the Lady in Polite Society.
Sensible Etiquette of the Best Society, Customs, Clara Sophia 18782
Manners, Morals, and Home Culture. Compiled Jessup
from the Best Authorities by Mrs. O. H. Ward. Bloomfield-
Moore
Social Etiquette of New York [Abby Buchanan 18792
Longstreet]
American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness Walter 18837/1882
R. Houghton
et al.
The Usages of the Best Society. A Complete Frances Stevens 1884
Manual of Social Etiquette
(continued)
80 A. Paternoster
Practical Etiquette N. C. [Klein Cora 1899

C.]
20th Century Hand-Book of Etiquette or Key to Maud C. Cooke 1899/1896
Social and Business success Containing Rules of
Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls;
Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions;
Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street;
Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete
Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well;
Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for
Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and
Interior Decorations, Etc.
Everyday Etiquette. A Practical Manual of Social Marion Harland 1905
Usages and Virginia
Van de Water
The Etiquette of New York Today by Mrs. Frank Ellin Learned 1906
Learned Craven
Etiquette. Good manners for All People, Agnes 1911/1892
Especially for Those “who Dwell Within the H. Morton
Broad Zone of the Average”.
Etiquette Made Easy Edward 1919
Summers
Squier M. A.
more fuzzy meaning of the term, this posed a problem for the retrieval
and the selection. For titles including savoir-vivre, I considered the table
of content to see if the book was offering the usual topics related to eti-
quette. To find other books, I used related search terms such as bon ton,
‘good ton’, usage ‘usage’, coutume ‘custom’, convenance ‘propriety’, cérémo-
nial ‘ceremonial’, code ‘code’, monde ‘society’, bienséance ‘propriety’.
2.5.2 The UK-English Corpus
Table 2.3 contains the UK-English corpus.

Most sources were retrieved from Google Books. A minority stem
from the British Library catalogue, https://www.bl.uk/, which sometimes
includes hyperlinks to Google Books. Other books are available via the
British Library’s own Digital Store: Trusler 1804; Henderson [1850?];
Table 2.5 The Dutch corpus

Lessen over de wellevendheid naar de vijfde [Mme Celnart] 18552/
Fransche uitgave [1836]
Handboek der wellevendheid of praktische gids 1855
om zich in gezelschappen en alle
omstandigheden des levens te gedragen als
iemand van beschaafde manieren; - wijders
om, vooral des wintersavonds, de ziel van een
gezelschap te wezen; en om zich overall
gezien te maken door eenen kieschen en
aangenamen omgang met dames. Alsmede
eene godenleer, teekenspraak, bloemenspraak,
kleurenspraak, enz. enz., enz.
Lessen over de wellevendheid voor heeren. Naar [George 18792/1869
het Engelsch. Routledge and
Sons]
Vormen. Handboek voor de samenleving in en Louise 1887
buiten huis Antoinette
Stratenus
De vrouw “comme il faut”, vrij bewerkt naar het Nathalie 1900/1897
Duitsch door Marie De Bock-Hardenberg Bruck-
Auffenberg
Handboek der Etiquette. Behartenswaardige 1903
Wetten en Wenken voor Oud en Jong.
Bewerkt door J. A. H. J.…
Het boek der etiquette Yvonne [1908]
Het wetboek van mevrouw étiquette in 32 E. C. v. d. M. [1910]8/
artikelen [Egbertina C. [1893]
van der
Mandele]
Handboekje der wellevendheid voor klein en [1910]
groot
Het Wetboek van mevrouw etiquette voor E. C. v. d. M. [1911?]2
Heeren [Egbertina C.
van der
Mandele]
Het boek van de beschaafde vormen en goede Mariette 1911/1885
manieren in hoofdzaak bewerkt naar de Verlaane
gravin de Gencé en andere bronnen
Goede manieren. Wat men doen en laten moet Jonkvrouw H. A. 19123/1885
in het dagelijksch leven van Rappard
Plichten en vormen voor beschaafde menschen. Marguérite de 19194/
Een handboek Viroflay- [1910]
Montrecourt
82 A. Paternoster
Table 2.6 The Italian corpus

La gente per bene. Leggi di Marchesa Colombi [Maria 1877
convenienza sociale Antonietta Torriani Torelli
Viollier]
Sulle convenienze sociali e sugli usi Il Conte Alfonso Bergando 1882/1881
dell’alta società
Galateo della Borghesia. Norme per Nevers [Emilia Luzzato] 1883
trattar bene
Le buone usanze Mantea [Maria Carolina 1897
Luigia “Gina” Sobrero]
Come devo comportarmi? Libro per Anna Vertua Gentile 1897
tutti
Saper vivere (Norme di buona Gibus del Mattino [Matilde 1900
creanza) Serao]
Il vero gentiluomo moderno. Filiberto Iviglia 1907
Precetti e consigli agli allievi degli
istituti militari inferiori.
Le buone maniere. Libro per tutti. Caterina Pigorini Beri 19082/1893
Il libro delle signore. Consigli e Jolanda [Maria Majocchi 1909/1906
norme di vita femminile Plattis]
contemporanea.
La vita: consigli pratici di vita Alberto Rossotti 191410/1910
vissuta.
Etiquette for the ladies: Or, the Principles of True Politeness 18522; How to
Behave: A Pocket Manual of Etiquette [1865/1852]; Routledge’s Manual of
Etiquette [1875?]. The last source is also available from Project Gutenberg,
https://www.gutenberg.org/, including Humphry 18972. Finally, some
were retrieved from Internet Archive, https://archive.org/: Manners and
Tone of Good Society [1880]2/[1879]; Modern Etiquette in Public and
Private 1887; Armstrong 1903.
2.5.3 The US-English Corpus
Table 2.4 contains the US-English Corpus

The sources were retrieved from Internet Archive, with these excep-
tions: Day 1843 was retrieved from Google Books; Cecil Hartley 1860a
and Florence Hartley 1860b were both retrieved from Project Gutenberg.
2.5.4 The Dutch Corpus
Table 2.5 contains the Dutch corpus.

Sources were retrieved from Delpher, https://www.delpher.nl/, except
for Handboek der wellevendheid of praktische gids 1855; Lessen over de wel-
levendheid naar de vijfde Fransche uitgave 18552/[1836]; [Routledge]
18792/1869, which were found on Google Books. Yvonne [1908] was
found on Project Gutenberg.
2.5.5 The Italian Corpus
Table 2.6 contains the Italian sources, the selection criteria of which were
explained in Sect. 2.4.5.
2.6 Conclusion
This chapter has set out to distinguish my research object, etiquette books,
from neighbouring instructional genres proposing advice on good man-
ners. The success of courtesy books peters out towards the end of the eigh-
teenth century, but everywhere conduct books stay popular throughout
the nineteenth century: it has therefore been important to track the his-
tory of etiquette books as a distinct genre. Dongelmans’ comparison of
Dutch conduct and etiquette books applies readily elsewhere (1999: 104):
conduct books have male authors, they mainly address children and young
adults, they are religiously inspired, have a comprehensive approach based
on elementary good manners and are inclusivist; etiquette books tend to
have a female authorship, they address adults, they deal with mere conven-
tions, they provide detailed treatment of set circumstances and have an
exclusionary message. The price of etiquette books shows that they are
hardly affordable for the petty bourgeoisie and aim for readership that is
well-off, from the established bourgeoise upwards. When considering eti-
quette books separate from conduct books, a remarkable consistency char-
acterises the historical trajectory of the genre in Western cultures, from the
US to Italy, via Britain, the Netherlands and France. Besides some isolated
forerunners at the very beginning of the century, the first books are from
84 A. Paternoster
the 1830s and production peaks in the second half of the century, except
for the Netherlands and Italy where the genre peaks somewhat later.
Clearly, the genre does not spread from one country to another; rather it
successfully emerges at the same time in the US, the UK and France. An
overarching explanation for the 1830s emergence is probably the end of
the Napoleonic wars, and the fact that, although Europe’s history remains
tumultuous with various revolutionary waves yet to come, most Western
countries are now engaged on the path to liberal democracy, without fur-
ther big international conflicts, allowing the middle class to fully reap the
benefits from the industrial revolution.
So far, I have discussed the editorial success of etiquette books adopt-
ing an external point of view, rooted in socio-economic history and in the
history of the book. In the next chapter, the point of view will be internal
to the genre. Chapter 3 starts by considering the definition of politeness
in conduct books and investigates how etiquette books position them-
selves towards these definitions. This discussion will start bringing into
view the specificity of etiquette, as defined by etiquette books themselves.
References
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Disciplina clericalis of Pedro Alfonso. By J. R. Jones and J. Esten Keller.
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A Manual of Etiquette for Ladies: Or, True Principles of Politeness. By a lady. 1856.
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A Manual of Politeness: Comprising the Principles of Etiquette, and Rules of
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Armstrong, Lucie Heaton. 1903. Etiquette and Entertaining. London: J. Long.
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86 A. Paternoster
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Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas;
Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to
Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for
Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.
Philadelphia: National Publishing Company.
Court Etiquette; A Guide to Intercourse With Royal or Titled Persons, to Drawing
Rooms, Levees, Courts, and Audiences, the Usages of Social Life, the Formal
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Etiquette for Gentlemen, Being a Manual of Minor Social Ethics and Customary
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3
Defining Etiquette
3.1 Introduction
Chapter 2 has provided a terminological classification that treats cour-
tesy, conduct and etiquette books as distinct textual categories. Whilst
Chap. 2 was building on studies of historical etiquette, Chap. 3 aims to
pinpoint the concept of etiquette as it is defined by nineteenth-century
etiquette authors themselves, who were keen to distinguish it from defi-
nitions of politeness that were current in contemporary conduct books.
Firstly, Sects. 3.2 and 3.3 propose a qualitative approach based on the
close reading of prefatory materials, where conduct and etiquette authors
are invested in defining their topic and justifying its relevance. How do
authors conceive of the social practice they are codifying? When the new
genre of etiquette books first appeared, quite naturally it needed to dis-
tinguish itself from existing instructional writing on good manners, that
is, conduct literature. As nineteenth-century politeness is invariably
defined as a moral virtue, this raises the question whether etiquette has a
moral nature as well. The answer tends to be negative; however, etiquette
‘borrows’ morality from politeness. Politeness studies are currently expe-
riencing a ‘moral turn’, with recent work focussing on the moral order

98 A. Paternoster
(see Kádár and Haugh 2013; Kádár 2017) and on the importance of
morality in language use (for an overview see Spencer-Oatey and Kádár
2016). Kádár and Márquez Reiter (2015) discuss morality in public set-
tings; see the growing body of work on morality by Márquez Reiter:
Márquez Reiter and Patiño-Santos (2017); Márquez Reiter and Orthaber
(2018); Márquez Reiter and Haugh (2019); Márquez Reiter (2021).
Culpeper and Tantucci (2021) propose a principle of reciprocity for the
study of (im)politeness, which is based in religious and legal frameworks,
such as the Golden Rule, while Kádár et al. (2019) and Culpeper and
Haugh (2021) explore language conflict, aggression and offence in the
context of morality. All these perspectives are based on Garfinkel’s (1964:
225) insight that, whenever social behaviour is frequent, it is perceived as
normal and therefore as good or right. As a result, respecting norms or
not is judged as being morally good or bad, right or wrong (Culpeper and
Tantucci 2021: 148). The recent volume The Philosophy of (Im)Politeness
edited by Chaoqun Xie (2021) contains several contributions on moral
(im)politeness, which study the link between politeness and ethics in
authors such as Kant, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Gadamer and
Heidegger. The analysis provided in Sect. 3.2 on conduct books defines
politeness as fraternal love in reference to the Golden Rule of reciprocity
and the Gospel. Next, Sect. 3.3 discusses how etiquette books relate to
the moral core of politeness.
Secondly, Sect. 3.4 adopts a quantitative approach based on corpus
studies; it uses the corpus toolbox Sketch Engine to investigate the term
‘etiquette’ in the various linguacultures represented in my self-built cor-
pus. Two questions are asked. What synonyms does the corpus contain
for ‘etiquette’? What are the main collocates for ‘etiquette’? The aim is
twofold: discover related metapragmatic labels that the sources use to talk
about etiquette; confront the semantic traits uncovered in the quantita-
tive analysis with the ones uncovered by the qualitative analysis in
Sect. 3.3.
Jucker (2020a: 19–20) provides an overview of methodological
approaches within historical politeness. For Jucker, examples of metaprag-
matic studies are a “corpus study of politeness vocabulary” and “careful
reading of handbooks or novels” (2020a: 20). Chapter 3 uses, indeed,
3 Defining Etiquette 99
corpus searches and close reading. Both approaches work with the meta-
discourse of etiquette and are part of what Jucker calls the study into the
“mention” of politeness—as opposed to studies into the “use” of polite-
ness, which deal with “various forms of polite interaction” (Jucker 2020a:
19). The metapragmatic dimension is “interrelated” to politeness1; how-
ever, it is “not co-extensive” with it (Jucker 2020a: 19). This leaves a bit
of room for the claim that my results also have relevance for a politeness2
perspective (see Jucker 2020a: 8; Chap. 8).
Finally, Sect. 3.5 proposes a working definition of etiquette. The defi-
nition is data-driven and discursive and therefore it will be a rather long
one, because it will accommodate the various semantic traits uncovered
by the analysis, which is based on first-order and emic data. It is also
second-order up to a certain extent, not only because of the proto-
scientific nature of the sources, but also because I, the analyst, summarise
the findings provided by the sources. As the analysis progresses over the
following chapters, the definition will remain a work in progress, to be
adjusted if necessary.
3.2 Etiquette and Politeness

The analysis starts with a French 1886 etiquette book (see Fig. 3.1). The
genre has now been very successful in France for three decades, and the
source offers a run-off-the-mill distinction between etiquette and polite-
ness. As it defines etiquette by distinguishing it from politeness, the pas-
sage also helps to introduce the understandings of politeness in conduct
books discussed in Sect. 3.2.2. However, the moralising conceptualisa-
tions of politeness made in conduct books recur in many etiquette books.
Therefore, the next step is to investigate how etiquette books go about
incorporating politeness into etiquette, and how this shapes their stance
on morality. Has etiquette got an intrinsic moral value on its own? Does
it, rather, derive morality from politeness? Or can etiquette dispense with
any moral foundation? Section 3.2.3 provides an overview of how eti-
quette authors understand the relationship between etiquette and
politeness.
100 A. Paternoster
Fig. 3.1 Title page (Nogent, Mme de 1886). Reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr /
Bibliothèque nationale de France
3.2.1 A First Distinction
The majority of etiquette books attempt to distinguish etiquette from

politeness. This discussion often takes place in a preface or in an intro-
ductory chapter, where it occupies a prominent position. The Catéchisme
du bon ton et des usages du monde ‘Catechism of good ton and usages of
society’ by Mme L. de Nogent (1886) offers a typical view. Despite the
religious connotation of the term ‘catechism’, this is unmistakeably an
etiquette book. De Nogent dedicates her two initial paragraphs to the
distinction between etiquette and politeness. The first paragraph is called
Politesse:
La politesse est au bon ton ce que la fleur des champs est aux plantes exo-
tiques; ces dernières ne viennent que par suite des soins qu’on a pris d’elles,
tandis que l’autre pousse naturellement, sans aucune culture.
La politesse est donc un sentiment inné, qui se développe par l’éducation
et selon le milieu où l’on vit. Elle consiste, en dehors des habitudes que la
fréquentation de la société nous fait contracter, en une disposition particu-
lière de notre cœur qui nous porte à être prévenants et attentionnés envers
notre prochain, alors même que rien ne nous y oblige. C’est ce que nous
appelons la politesse du cœur. Celle-ci, cultivée par l’éducation, en engen-
dre une autre qui est cette politesse de l’esprit de laquelle La Rochefoucauld
a dit: qu’elle consiste à penser des choses bonnes et honnêtes. L’un et l’autre de
ces sentiments font partie de notre nature et ne varient pas comme les
usages. ‘Politeness is to good ton what the flower of the field is to exotic
plants; the latter only flower as a result of the care taken of them, while the
other grows naturally, without any cultivation. Politeness is thus an innate
feeling, which develops through education and according to the environ-
ment in which one lives. It consists, outside of the habits that we contract
by frequenting society, in a particular disposition of our heart which leads
us to be considerate and attentive towards our neighbour, even when noth-
ing obliges us to do so. This is what we call politeness from the heart. When
cultivated by education, this type of politeness generates another one which
is that politeness of the mind of which La Rochefoucauld has said that it
consists in thinking good and honest things. Both feelings are part of our
nature and do not vary like usages.’ (Nogent, Mme de 1886: 2–3, origi-
nal emphasis)
Politeness has the following characteristics. It is a natural, innate disposi-

tion, which humans have even before they are educated, causing them to
be attentive to the needs of others, seen as their neighbours, or brothers.
It is called politeness from the heart, it is a ‘feeling’, sentiment (see Sect.
102 A. Paternoster
2.2.2 on la politesse du cœur in French conduct books). When improved

by education, it becomes a politeness of the mind, consisting in having
virtuous thoughts. Importantly, because human beings are born with this
disposition, it is universal. In short, politeness is the innate, universal
feeling of neighbourly love. The paragraph also contains three summary
indications about what politeness is not: it does not concern the habits of
society, it is not compulsory, it does not vary.
Seen positively, these three characteristics—the varying and compul-
sory habits of society—will return in de Nogent’s second paragraph, ded-
icated to etiquette:
Le bon ton, le savoir-vivre et les usages du monde sont un ensemble de

conventions reconnues par la bonne société et adoptées par elle; elles sont
sujettes à de légers changements et suivent un peu ce que nous appelons la
mode. Elles ne sont pas les mêmes dans tous les pays, et telle politesse qui
passe, en Afrique, pour le superlatif du bon ton, serait prise, chez nous,
pour un manque complet d’éducation. ‘Good ton, etiquette and the usages
of society are a set of conventions recognised by good society and adopted
by it; they are subject to slight changes and somewhat follow what we call
fashion. They are not the same in all countries, and such act of politeness
which passes, in Africa, for the pinnacle of good ton, would be taken, with
us, for a complete lack of education.’ (Nogent, Mme de 1886: 3)
The domain to be distinguished from politesse is the one covered by “le

bon ton, le savoir-vivre et les usages du monde”1 ‘good ton, etiquette and
the usages of society’, which are treated as synonyms. Note that they
appear in the title of the book: Catéchisme du bon ton et des usages du
monde. The synonyms refer to a set of social conventions, in particular,
the conventions adopted by the elite, “la bonne société” ‘good society’.
The conventions vary with time and place, like a fashion. Indeed, De
Nogent provides an example of a cross-cultural etiquette blunder, between
a Maltese man and an African tribal chief: what the Maltese interprets as
1
As seen in Chap. 2, savoir-vivre appears in conduct as well as in etiquette titles and can, therefore,
mean ‘politeness’ as well as ‘etiquette’. In etiquette books, I will translate it as ‘etiquette’ unless this
is impossible, for example, when the word étiquette appears in the same sentence. In that case, I
translate with ‘savoir vivre’, which has currency in English since the mid-eighteenth century.
‘Savoir-vivre’ has one hit in my UK corpus, two in the US corpus.
an insult is in fact a sign of great esteem for the African chief (Nogent,
Mme de 1886: 3–4).
Next, de Nogent addresses the compulsory aspect of etiquette:
Une jeune personne, sortie de pension depuis une dizaine de jours, me

demandait, il y a quelques temps, s’il était absolument nécessaire, pour être
une femme bien élevée, de suivre à la lettre toutes les règles du savoir- vivre
à l’usage du monde? Certainement, lui ai-je répondu. Lorsque, en classe, on
vous a donné une grammaire, vous avez dû l’apprendre pour pouvoir parler
et écrire correctement votre langue?
Le savoir-vivre est la grammaire que l’on vous met entre les mains bien
après la première, et qui vous enseigne à vous conduire, dans une société,
selon ses usages. ‘A young person, having left boarding school about ten
days earlier, asked me, some time ago, if it was absolutely necessary, to be a
well-behaved woman, to follow to the letter all the rules of etiquette accord-
ing to the usage of society? Certainly, I replied. When, in class, you were
taught grammar, did you have to learn it in order to be able to speak and
write your language correctly? Etiquette is the grammar which is put in
your hands well after the first one, and which teaches you how to behave,
in a society, according to its uses.’ (Nogent, Mme de 1886: 7, origi-
nal emphasis)
The simile with grammar is instructive. Firstly, it reveals the age at which
etiquette starts to matter. De Nogent addresses young women to whom
she offers a second education, meant to complete the first one received in
school. Secondly, etiquette demands total compliance. After the question
whether it is necessary to follow conventions ‘to the letter’, the answer is
a resounding yes, ‘certainly’. Like grammar, etiquette must be followed
‘correctly’, that is, one must know the fine detail of the rules and apply
them. For de Nogent, etiquette addresses young adults, it regards usages
of good society, it varies with time and place and is highly compulsory,
even at the level of fine detail.
Rewind 80 years. The very first etiquette book in my corpus is written
by an author who has published an earlier work on politeness. John
Trusler’s A System of Etiquette (1804) follows his earlier Principles of
Politeness and of Knowing the World (1775), a moralising synopsis of Lord
Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son. Trusler’s work on politeness stays “within
104 A. Paternoster
the rules of morality” (1775: Advertisement); however, the 1804 book is a

necessary complement to the earlier publication:
[…] but I find there is one knowledge still to teach, namely Etiquette, or
those forms of Society necessary to be known by every young gentleman
who wishes to be well received, and which are not to be learned, without
some general rules to instruct him. […]
There is no living well in society without submitting to, and falling in
with, the forms of it, absurd as many of them may be—but fashion is
absurd in most of its modes. (Trusler 1804: 3)
Whilst politeness stays within the realm of morality, etiquette has to do

with compliance to surface “forms”, which have to be taught/instructed
by the author and learned by the reader, that is, a young man cannot
work them out for himself. The reason is that many etiquette rules are
“absurd” and arbitrary, an obvious consequence of the fact that they are
like a fashion, which varies with time and place, as pointed out by
de Nogent.
Both de Nogent and Trusler understand politeness and etiquette as
very different social practices. As authors of etiquette books endeavour to
set their publications apart from conduct books, it makes sense to con-
sider how conduct books define politeness.
3.2.2 Politeness in Conduct Books
As seen in Sect. 2.2.1, conduct books have a moralising approach, and

the frame of reference is provided by Christian values. Louis-Dominique
Champeau’s Des bienséances sociales ou traité de politesse (18774/1864) is a
conduct book written by a Catholic priest addressing a French and
Belgian public of schoolboys—the fourth edition is jointly published in
Paris and Brussels. He dedicates his work to his pupils whom the book—
so he hopes—will help to “devenir aimables, je veux dire vraiment dignes
d’être aimés, car Dieu et les hommes ne sauraient manquer de chérir des
jeunes gens qui mettent en pratique les maximes de l’Évangile et qui ont
dans le cœur ces précieuses vertus morales, dont la vraie politesse est le
reflet” ‘become amiable, I mean truly worthy of being loved, for God and
men would not fail to cherish young people who put into practice the
maxims of the Gospel and who have in their hearts these precious moral
virtues, of which true politeness is the reflection’ (Champeau 18774/1864:
À mes chers élèves). True politeness reflects the virtue of fraternal love, the
theological virtue of charity. Lengthy quotes from the Apostles Paul and
Peter and the Evangelist John lead to the conclusion that “la charité, qui
comprend à elle seule tous les devoirs sociaux, est la politesse du cœur”
‘charity, which in itself includes all social duties, is politeness from the
heart’ (Champeau 18774/1864: 5). Importantly, Champeau also dis-
cusses a different social practice, regarding “certaines manières, certaines
formules, des procédés et un langage de convention, dont la connaissance
ne s’acquiert que dans la bonne société” ‘certain manners, certain expres-
sions, procedures and a conventional language, knowledge of which can
only be acquired in good society’ (Champeau 18774/1864: 5–6). The
conventions of etiquette are “purement accessoires” ‘purely of secondary
importance’. For Champeau—quoting Félix Dupanloup (1802–1878),
bishop of Orléans and celebrated author of educational writings such as
De l’éducation (1850)—the epitome of the polite individual is, therefore,
the mountain dweller. Living “dans les lieux les plus agrestes de la nature
[…] et aux sommets des Alpes les plus reculées” ‘in the most rustic places
of nature […] and at the peaks of the most remote Alps’, mountain peo-
ple have “une dignité plus haute et une plus douce politesse que chez les
habitants des villes” ‘a more elevated dignity and a sweeter politeness than
found in city dwellers’ (Champeau 18774/1864: 6). The conduct book
contrasts people who are naturally polite, even though they live far from
society, and city dwellers, who are part of society, but may be less polite.
Undoubtedly, in conduct books, politeness from the heart is more impor-
tant than surface, or outward, forms.
Champeau’s religious definition of politeness as the virtue of charity is
common in nineteenth-century conduct books. Conduct books predom-
inantly define politeness as fraternal or neighbourly love, in reference to
the Second Commandment of the Gospel, “love thy neighbour as thy-
self ” (Matthew 22:35–40 and Mark 12:28–34), which forms the basis of
the so-called Golden Rule or reciprocity rule: do to others as you would
have them do to you and do not do to others as you would not have them
do to you (Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31). The Golden Rule has been
106 A. Paternoster
formulated by the Greek philosopher Pittakos (ca. 650–570 BCE), by

Confucius, and it appears in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain texts and in the main
Abrahamic religions. Its precise origin is hard to pinpoint and it has been
linked to a panhuman capacity for empathy (Wattles 1996; Du Roy
2009; Couture 2010; Gensler 2013). Paternoster and Saltamacchia
(2017: 269–272) discuss the presence of the Golden Rule in Italian nine-
teenth-century conduct books: 11 sources (out of 30) quote the Golden
Rule and/or recommend loving one’s neighbour. Importantly, because
politeness is based on this overarching rule, conduct books provide a rela-
tively simple pathway into making ‘good’ choices, a simplicity also
inspired by didactic reasons given readers’ young age (on the Golden
Rule as the basis of the reciprocity principle in present-day (im)politeness
see Culpeper and Tantucci 2021: 149). Saltamacchia (2021) and
Saltamacchia and Rocci (2019) investigate an alternative argumentative
pathway in an influential Italian conduct book, Il nuovo galateo by
Melchiorre Gioja (1802), a work influenced by the statistical and eco-
nomic background of the author, for whom reason and mathematics are
the main instruments for working out what counts as polite behaviour.
The following conduct book has an eloquent title, Le fond et la forme.
Le savoir-vivre pour les jeunes filles ‘Substance and form. Politeness for
young girls’ (Maryan and Béal 1896). The preface typically explores the
relationship between etiquette and politeness, with the warning that the
surface form will always ‘betray’ what is underneath, that is, “ou la pau-
vreté ou la richesse du fond” ‘either poverty or richness of substance’
(Maryan and Béal 1896: v). This is where the metaphor of the crack or
the tear becomes relevant. One can be polite without knowing etiquette
(like the mountain dweller), but etiquette without politeness is not
acceptable to good society. A crack in the outward form may show a lack
of substance:
La forme, elle est souvent un habit trop étroit qu’un mouvement inattendu
fait craquer, et alors gare à la doublure, ou à ce que son absence laisse voir!
À un moment ou à un autre le vrai fond se dévoile, le naturel s’échappe,
prend le dessus. ‘The form is often too tight a dress ripped by an unex-
pected movement, and then beware of the lining, or what its absence
shows! At one point or another the real substance is revealed, nature escapes
and takes over.’ (Maryan and Béal 1896: 20)
Etiquette is like a narrow dress, which can tear and show a shabby lining,
or worse! This line of thought is neither exclusively French nor Catholic.
Another French conduct book by Pierre Boitard has a more secular
approach: “Voilà la Politesse du cœur. Donnez à cet homme-là de
l’éducation et l’usage du monde, et vous en ferez un être parfait.” ‘This is
Politeness of the heart. Give this man an education and knowledge of
society, and you will turn him into a perfect being’ (1851: 20). This
English conduct book shows a similar reflection: “The most delightful
manner will soon pall, if it stands alone in the character; and the most
polished exterior will soon seem hollow and insipid, if there be nothing
deeper that we can look for” (The English Gentleman 1849: 2). This
‘deeper’ substance is “principle and moral rectitude” (The English
Gentleman 1849: 3). As these are conduct books, the prominence of
morality over etiquette is to be expected.
Less expected is the fact that this cluster of notions and metaphors (the
mountain dweller indicating that true politeness does not need etiquette
and its revers, that etiquette needs true politeness, indicated by the meta-
phors of the tear or the crack) is common in etiquette books. In fact, the
need for politeness of the heart and genuine kindness is never negated
(but it might be absent). After all, who “was likely to advocate either bad
manners or bad morals?” (Curtin 1981: 45 and 102). A middle-class
readership “demanded moral rectitude in its etiquette books” and would
never allow “explicit advice to adopt a morally questionable set of man-
ners” (Curtin 1981: 103). It certainly feels as though etiquette books pay
lip service to morality in the initial chapters, and then never mention
it again.
3.2.3 Politeness in Etiquette Books: On Varnish

and Veneer
Alain Montandon, who in the 1990s assembled an international research

team to study manuals on good manners, gives some pointers: etiquette
108 A. Paternoster
is made of out rigid rules, imposed by usage; politeness is a matter of

individual and subjective choice (1992: 11–12). In other words, etiquette
is amoral, politeness is moralising (Montandon 1992: 13–14). Politeness
as the moral virtue of charity is at the centre of conduct books, but is
there any room for morality in etiquette books?
Etiquette books often concede it is possible to be truly polite without
knowing all the rules of etiquette. The metaphor of the mountain dweller
recurs in etiquette books, and often he is mentioned beside the peas-
ant woman:
La vraie politesse ne s’entend pas toujours des belles manières; la simple

paysanne, comme le rustique montagnard, sont souvent plus véritablement
polis que certaines gens du monde qui, sous des formes extérieures irrépro-
chables, cachent parfois un mauvais cœur. ‘True politeness is not always
familiar with fine manners: the simple peasant woman, like the rustic
mountain dweller, are often more genuinely polite than certain people of
the world who, under irreproachable outward forms, sometimes hide a
mean heart.’ (La Fère, de 18897: 3)
De La Fère goes on to quote François Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai

and royal tutor of the grandson to Louis XIV, as a source. F. G.-M. quotes
another French catholic educationist, Saint Francis de Sales (mentioned
in Sect. 2.2.2):
Dans les montagnards, dit saint François de Sales, j’ai souvent rencontré
cette bonne et merveilleuse simplicité qui fait la parfaite politesse, que le
monde, tout poli qu’il est, ne connaît pas toujours. ‘In mountain people,
says Saint Francis de Sales, I have often encountered that good and beauti-
ful simplicity which makes perfect politeness, which the world, polite as it
is, does not always know.’ (G.-M. 1908: 4; see also Drohojowska, Comtesse
de 18787; Nevers 1883).
Others make Rousseauist references to “un homme inculte, étranger à

toutes les formules du savoir-vivre” ‘an uneducated man, foreign to all the
formulas of etiquette’ (J. B. C. 1882: 2) or the “savage” (Hartley,
C. B. 1860a: 33), while a British source quotes the “Red Indian of North
America” and “other barbarians” who are “proverbially polite” despite
having no knowledge of “the conventionalities of civilized life” (Court

Etiquette 1849: 49). Other etiquette sources just state that politeness
from the heart is indispensable, without quoting any particular role mod-
els (Breton de la Martinière 1808; The Ladies’ science of Etiquette 18512;
The Habits of Good Society 1859; Hartley 1860b; Clément 1879; Parr
1892; Mantea 1897; Vertua Gentile 1897; Rappard, Jonkvrouw van
19123/1885, and so on).
Etiquette is seen as an outward layer, a “superficial tincture”, a “bor-
rowed exterior” (A Manual of Politeness 1837: 12). If you only follow
outward forms, without backing them up by fraternal love, then chances
are that sooner or later you will inadvertently show your true, that is,
rude, colours. Many authors use a varnish metaphor. Emilia Nevers calls
etiquette without genuine feelings a “vernice che si scrosta, maschera che
a lungo andare cade da sè, poiché la vera creanza deriva dal cuore” ‘peel-
ing varnish, a mask that in the long run falls off by itself since true polite-
ness comes from the heart’ (1883: 3). The etiquette varnish risks peeling
often, indeed, “verranno molte occasioni in cui l’abituale sgarbatezza si
tradirà improvvisamente” ‘there will be many occasions when the habit-
ual rudeness will suddenly be betrayed’ (Nevers 1883: 4). French sources
use the word vernis ‘varnish’: “Mais ces règles […] ne servent qu’à mettre
un vernis sur la face extérieure de la vie mondaine” ‘But these rules […]
only serve to put a varnish on the exterior face of worldly life’ (Chambon
1907: 2; see also Celnart 18342/1832, Les usages du monde 1880;
Pompeillan, La Marquise de 1898). Likewise, a Dutch source sees eti-
quette “als een dun laagje vernis dat elk oogenblik kan wegschuiven en de
ruwe onderlaag dan toonen zal” ‘as a thin layer of varnish that can move
away at any moment and will then reveal the rough undercoat’ (Handboek
der Etiquette 1903: 9; Rappard, Jonkvrouw van 19123/1885; M., v.d.
19108/1893; M., v.d. 19112).
British Flora Klickmann uses the imagery of “veneer” (1915: 2), which
is also used in US sources: “It would seem to be the first duty of every
man to have good manners—not the superficial veneer which is merely
the outside polish, but the good manners that spring from a good heart
and a sincere, manly nature.” (Learned 1906: 103; see also Moore 18782).
The varnish/veneer metaphor is productive and indicates a vision whereby
etiquette itself is tendentially amoral because it regards surface manners.
110 A. Paternoster
It, therefore, needs to be grounded in the virtue of charity. Breton de la

Martinière makes the claim that his etiquette book “n’est pas un traité de
morale”, ‘is not a treatise on morals’; however, he presumes his reader to
be virtuous, that he “fait plus que posséder le germe de toutes les vertus,
qu’un instituteur habile a su le développer en lui” ‘does more than possess
only the germ of all virtues, and that a gifted teacher has been able to
grow this germ in him’ (1808: ix–x). The quote shows that the relation-
ship between politeness and etiquette is also related to the age of the ideal
reader. The ideal reader of etiquette books is an adult embarking on a
second education to complete his first education, that of virtuous polite-
ness received in childhood.
A rather more restrictive view on the need for morality is the one where
politeness functions as a ‘stopgap’ for potential omissions in etiquette.
Morals are not relied on all the time; however, they are relied on at certain
moments. Etiquette, however intricate, cannot possibly cover every single
aspect of social life and when there is such a gap, one must be able to fall
back onto politeness. Italian Mantea proposes this view. Mantea’s preface
insists on the need for “una sana e corretta educazione morale; in guisa
che le forme esteriori e visibili rappresentino sinceramente il fondo di
bontà e di sentimenti delicati che debbono essere nell’animo d’ogni per-
sona bennata” ‘a healthy and correct moral education; so that the out-
ward, visible forms sincerely represent a foundation of goodness and
sensitive feelings, which must be in the soul of every good person’ (1897:
vi). Notwithstanding, she only returns to the need for politeness on the
very last page of her etiquette book:
È probabile, anzi è certo, che avrò scordato cento casi in cui vi potrebbe
occorrere un saggio e benefico appoggio; però se ho mancato di adempiere
completamente, rigorosamente la missione che mi sono imposta, vi lascio
a guida un precetto che non potrà a meno di condurvi a bene agire: Non
fate agli altri quello che non vorreste fatto a voi stessi: fate agli altri quello che
vorreste fatto a voi. ‘It is probable, in fact, it is certain, that I will have for-
gotten a hundred cases in which you might need wise and beneficial advice;
however, if I have failed to fulfil completely, rigorously the mission that I
have imposed on myself, I leave you as a guide a precept that will not fail
to lead you to act well: Do not do to others what you would not want them to
do to you: do to others what you would want them to do to you.’ (Mantea

1897: 222)
For cases she has forgotten to include, she recommends the Golden Rule.
Mentions of the Golden Rule are, therefore, not the exclusive terrain of
conduct books. In the UK corpus the search string ‘golden rule’ gives 10
results, in 6 different sources; in the US corpus it appears 17 times, in 8
different sources. Dutch sources mention the gulden regel once. As
expected, Italian and French sources do not use this expression,2 but the
Golden Rule is still present. The Italian phrase non fate agli altri quello che
non vorreste fosse fatto a voi (the so-called silver rule) returns three times
(besides its use in Mantea). The French phrase Ne faites pas aux autres ce
que vous ne voudriez pas qu’on vous fit appears twice.
Nevertheless, not every etiquette author agrees with the need for a
moral foundation. Etiquette on its own—be it superficial and shallow—
can still be beneficial because it avoids conflicts. This vision refers to a
worst-case scenario, that is, social conflict. Like Breton de la Martinière,
Marchesa Colombi claims that her etiquette book is not a “trattato di
morale” ‘moral treatise’ (1877: 4), but her justification is rather more
pragmatic than the Frenchman’s. Not many people are able to feel genu-
ine fraternal love:
[…] sarebbe superfluo il pretendere di stillare in tutti gli animi i veri senti-
menti a cui debbono ispirarsi le leggi della cortesia; sentimenti che, del
resto, si riassumono tutti nella massima “Non fate ad altri quello che non
vorreste fosse fatto a voi”. Mi limiterò dunque ad indicare quello scambio
di cortesie che si usano fra persone educate, e che l’uso generale ha fatto
passare in costume; se non saranno che cortesie di forma, pazienza. ‘it
would be superfluous pretending to instil in every soul the true feelings
which must inspire the laws of courtesy; feelings which, moreover, are all
summed up in the maxim ‘Do not do to others what you would not want
them to do to you’. I will therefore limit myself to indicating that exchange
of courtesies that is used between educated people, and that general use has
2
Indeed, until the end of the nineteenth century the term ‘golden rule’ is only circulating in English
(Couture 2010).
112 A. Paternoster
turned into customs; if they will be mere courtesies of form, we must be

patient.’ (Colombi, Marchesa 1877: 4)
For Marchesa Colombi etiquette is a compromise: if the reader cannot

feel genuine fraternal love, mere surface forms will do. From this angle,
the varnish metaphor can be used to express the benefits of etiquette,
even without underlaying politeness. The “vernis de cette politesse de
convention” ‘varnish of this conventional politeness’ can “du moins” ‘at
least’ hide “les défauts d’une nature grossière” ‘the shortcomings of a rude
nature’ (Les usages du monde 1880: 2). The “du moins” is significant: eti-
quette is second best, a compromise, whenever real charity, “l’amabilité
des sentiments” ‘amiability of feelings’ is impossible to achieve (Les usages
du monde 1880: 21). So far, all these perspectives see etiquette itself as
being devoid of morality.
A minority have the opposite view where etiquette itself is moral. La
Marquise de Pompeillan makes this statement on the laws of etiquette:
Ces lois sont morales, car elles excluent l’expression basse du parler et
l’indécence du geste. Elles servent en outre de régulateur et de frein à la
libre manifestation de nos désirs et de nos appétits. ‘These laws are moral
because they exclude the vulgar expression of speech and the indecency of
gestures. They also serve as a regulator and a brake on the free manifesta-
tion of our desires and appetites.’ (Pompeillan, La Marquise de 1898: vii)
For de Pompeillan, etiquette has a moral nature because it keeps selfish

urges in check. Others too link etiquette to a respect for the rights of oth-
ers. The anonymous Etiquette for Gentlemen has a telling subtitle: Being a
Manual of Minor Social Ethics and Customary Observances (1857). How
can the customary observances of etiquette be seen as minor social ethics?
The introduction tackles the question: to “treat recognised social obser-
vances with contempt is neither wise, nor kind, nor Christian-like” given
that “all social life consists in taking and giving, mutual compliance and
sacrifice” (Etiquette for Gentlemen 1857: 5–6). For the author of The
Habits of Good Society (1859) “laws of etiquette” might as well be called
“laws of Christian action” because they “insist upon the show of that
which ought to come spontaneously from the heart” (The Habits of Good
Society 1859: 240). Although the “ordinances of society” may seem arbi-
trary, “they all tend to one end, the preservation of harmony, and the
prevention of one person from usurping the rights, or intruding on the
province of other” (The Habits of Good Society 1859: 85–86). Similar
ideas are shared by an American source. Its title is eloquent in this respect:
Sensible Etiquette of the Best Society, Customs, Manners, Morals, and Home
Culture (Moore 18782). Sensible etiquette pertains to morals because it
protects the “rights and dignities” of the individual:
[…] for we may rest assured that a fine etiquette, treating every individual,
as it does, on the plane of sovereignty, never forgetting his rights and digni-
ties, giving him his own place, and keeping others out of it, making it easy
by custom of the multitude to render unto Caesar, regarding always, as it
will be found to do, the sensitiveness of the most sensitive, destroying the
agony of bashfulness, controlling the insolence of audacity, repressing the
rapacity of selfishness, and maintaining the authority of the legitimate, has
something to do with morality, and is an expression of the best that civili-
zation has yet done. (Moore 18782: xxi)
Although the author has quoted the Golden rule as the “basis of all polite-
ness” (Moore 18782: xviii), etiquette itself acquires a moral value given
that the “whole object of these laws is to maintain the dignity of the
individual and the comfort of the community” (Moore 18782: xx).
In conclusion, the majority of sources agree that, although etiquette
has no morality of its own, it must be grafted onto a sound moral base
consisting in true politeness, which should have been acquired in child-
hood. Paternoster (2019: 136) studies evaluative adjectives in Italian eti-
quette books with Appraisal Theory (Martin and White 2005) and finds
an important presence of adjectives linked to politeness in the meaning
of moral goodness. There are, nevertheless, voices who defend different
positions. On the one hand, there are authors for whom etiquette itself
has moral value because obeying social conventions is a way of respecting
others’ individual rights. On the other hand, there are a good number of
etiquette sources that have neither preface nor introduction. The reader is
taken straight to the first set of rules, usually about presentations, the
access ritual that forms quite naturally the start of social interaction. Most
114 A. Paternoster
of these manuals are from the twentieth century, when the genre was
well-established, and it was felt there was no longer a need to present it to
the public: Lady de S****** 1837; True Politeness 1847; Routledge’s Manual
of Etiquette 1875?; Harland and Van de water 1905; Learned 1906;
Armstrong 1908; Yvonne 1908; Verlaane 1911/1885. As a result, these
manuals do not compare etiquette with politeness and contain no con-
ceptualising reflections on the potential morality of etiquette.
3.3 Definitions of Etiquette

Having discussed differences between etiquette and politeness, this para-
graph gives centre stage to ‘home-grown’, that is, first-order and emic
definitions of etiquette in my self-built corpus. These definitions show-
case the rationalising component of etiquette books: authors are con-
cerned with establishing an analytical basis for what it is they are doing.
They undoubtedly take part in a second-order endeavour, as they try to
be systematic in their writing on etiquette. Definitions from different
linguacultures under examination will help to illustrate the consistency in
the effort of conceptualising etiquette. Some (later) sources, however,
have no preface at all and dispense with the need for a definition. So far,
etiquette has shown to have four main characteristics:
• Etiquette consists of an amoral set of conventions regulating outward

forms of behaviour subject to variation in time and place (custom-
ary aspect);
• it is highly compulsory and demands compliance with fine details
(normative aspect);
• it is associated with the social elite (gatekeeping aspect);
• etiquette readers are supposed to have already acquired politeness,
understood as the moral virtue of fraternal love (educational aspect).
I prefer the term ‘behaviour’ over ‘interaction’ as so much attention is

given to material goods like interior decorating, dress, flower arrange-
ments, menus, table ware and so on. Of course, all these are forms of
conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1899), meant to consolidate prestige,

and have undeniable social consequences.
The next step is to illustrate these four characteristics with examples.
3.3.1 The Customary Aspect
Italian and French sources do not provide actual definitions of etiquette;

they rather describe the topic of their book. Mantea dedicates her eti-
quette book called Le buone usanze “good usages” to “le usanze, le abitu-
dini, i bisogni sociali” ‘usages, habits, social needs’ and she justifies her
endeavour with the fact that customs change with increasing speed, that
is, “non solo ad ogni secolo o ad ogni lustro, ma ormai si può dire che
mutano ad ogni anno” ‘by now it can be said that they change, not only
every century or every five years, but every year’ (Mantea 1897: v).
Likewise, Alfonso Bergando justifies his manual with the fact that “fa
d’uopo conoscere perfettamente gli usi della migliore società, ed essersene
formato una abitudine” ‘it is necessary to know perfectly the customs of
best society, and to have formed a habit of them’ (1882/1881: 6). His
book Sulle convenienze sociali e sugli usi dell’alta società is about elite, ‘high
society’ usages and conventions. Journalist Matilde Serao runs a society
column and this, she writes, feeds naturally into her manual:
A furia di segnare, quotidianamente, gli usi e le loro trasformazioni, i cos-

tumi e le loro modificazioni, le nuove inclinazioni della vita, questo manu-
ale del Saper vivere è venuto fuori, così, naturalmente. ‘Because of my
continuous and daily reporting on the usages and their transformations,
the customs and their modifications, the new inclinations of life, this Saper
vivere manual has emerged like so, naturally.’ (Gibus del Mattino 1900:
Prefazione)
Serao is keen to show that she is in step with the latest developments.
Overall, it appears that the Italian sources put more emphasis on the
customary aspect of etiquette as a quickly evolving set of customs.
116 A. Paternoster
3.3.2 The Normative Aspect
Anonymous Etiquette for All aims to define etiquette from the first line of
the book. Numerous sources in the UK corpus, indeed, start with a defi-
nition of etiquette:
Etiquette may be defined as the due observance of a polite and refined

manner in our social intercourse. It is the word used to designate the rules
and ceremonies recognised and exacted by civilized society, and the knowl-
edge and practice of these, constitute Politeness or Good-breeding. There
are various kinds of Etiquette, such as that pertaining to the court of the
Sovereign, the Church, the Courts of Law, and the other professions […].
(Etiquette for All 1861: 5)
The author highlights the compulsory nature of etiquette with terms such
as “observance”, “rules and ceremonies”, “exigencies” which are “recog-
nised and exacted” within “social intercourse”. The author lists other
branches of etiquette, that is “of the Sovereign, the Church, the Courts of
Law, and the other professions”, but he (or she) will focus on “social
intercourse”.
The Comtesse de Bassanville dedicates her manual to “certaines con-
ventions adoptées par la bonne société, et qui, érigées en obligations
absolues, ne doivent, sous aucun prétexte, être négligées par l’homme
comme il faut” ‘certain conventions adopted by good society, and which,
erected into absolute obligations, must not, under any pretext, be
neglected by the man comme il faut’ (Bassanville, Comtesse de 1867: i–ii,
original emphasis). The countess insists on the mandatory aspect of eti-
quette, which is absolute.
In Sect. 3.2.1 De Nogent has compared etiquette to grammar. La
Marquise de Pompeillan uses the same simile involving grammar and the
need for correctness, “la correction”:
Ces règles [du savoir-vivre] sont aussi nécessaires à connaître pour être
femme du monde, que celles de la grammaire pour parler et écrire
correctement.
L’on a de la correction ou l’on en manque, selon que l’on se rapproche

ou s’éloigne de ces règles.
Ces règles, qui contiennent les exigences, le cérémonial, le langage et les
coutumes d’une société bien élevée, sont ses lois. ‘These rules [of etiquette]
are as necessary to know in order to be a woman of the world, as those of
grammar in order to speak and write correctly. We are correct or not,
depending on whether we are getting closer to or move away from these
rules. These rules, which contain the demands, the ceremonial, the lan-
guage and the customs of a well-bred society, are its laws.’ (Pompeillan,
Marquise de 1898: vii)
The metaphorical discourse shifts from grammar rules to lois ‘laws’.

Indeed, besides grammar, another recurring metaphor is that of law. In
this French source, etiquette is seen as a code of law, similar to the Code
Napoléon, or the Civil Code of the French, famously established in 1804
by the Napoleonic government to end centuries of local, feudal laws:
Si j’avais été Napoléon, disait mon grand-père, j’aurais placé à côté du

Code civil, le code de la civilité….
La politesse a un code de lois, desquelles nul ne peut se départir dans le
monde; […]? ‘If I had been Napoleon, said my grandfather, I would have
placed next to the Civil Code, the code of civility….
Politeness has a code of laws, from which no one in the world must
depart.’ (Les usages du monde 1880: 1)
Note the shift in the terminology: here politesse means etiquette—for

politeness from the heart the same paragraph uses amabilité ‘amiability’
(Les usages du monde 1880: 1). The terms change, but not the concept:
etiquette is a code of law applied to social life, just like the Code Napoléon
is the code of civil law. The term code appears in more than one French
etiquette title: Le code de la politesse (Breton de la Martinière 1808); Code
du cérémonial (Bassanvile, Comtesse de 1867); Guide-manuel de la civilité
française, ou nouveau code de la politesse et du savoir-vivre (Burani 1879).
The Dutch title Het wetboek van mevrouw étiquette, “the legal code of
mrs. Etiquette”, exploits the same metaphor (M., v. d. 19108/1893).
Kasson observes that “far and away” the reference to law is the “favorite
analogy” to define etiquette in American sources, “to justify the essential
118 A. Paternoster
function of etiquette in a democracy and to win compliance with its

demands” (1990: 60).
Some Italian sources uses a synonym for etichetta that derives its mean-
ing from executive power, prammatica, ‘decree’, ‘edict’. Caterina Pigorini
Beri’s etiquette book will “invadere il campo riservato alle prammatiche,
così dette ufficiali e in gran parte destinate alle classi sociali più elevate”
‘invade the field reserved for the so-called official protocols, which are
largely intended for the higher social classes’ (19082/1893: 10, original
emphasis). Note the presence of the term ‘official’. The term prammatiche
has an etymology—literally ‘what is to be done’—linked to decrees that
have force of law.
3.3.3 The Gatekeeping Aspect
The following Dutch source presents a definition of etiquette that is

anchored in the usual references to both its customary and compul-
sory aspect:
Onder het woord etiquette verstaat men die aangenomene of ingevoerde

gebruiken, welke bij iedere zamenkomst van twee of meer personen en bij
velerhande gelegenheden als gedragslijn gelden, tegen welke het niemand
geoorloofd is te zondigen. De etiquette is derhalve voor een gedeelte iets
zeer willekeurigs, doch voor het overige is het een natuurlijk uitvloeisel der
beschaving. […] Haar voornaamste doel bestaat hierin, om zonder schok-
ken, zonder botsingen te zorgen, dat iedereen in de maatschappij op zijne
plaats blijve; […]. ‘With the word etiquette are meant those customs,
whether adopted or introduced, that, at every meeting of two or more
people and on many occasions, apply as a course of behaviour against
which no one is allowed to sin. Etiquette, therefore, is partly something
very arbitrary, but otherwise it is a natural outgrowth of civilization. […]
Its main aim is to ensure, without jerks, without collisions, that everyone
in society stays in his place.’ (Handboek der wellevendheid of praktische gids
1855: 11–12)
The author defines a minimal context for etiquette: it is indicated when

at least two people meet. More important is the reference to the social
hierarchy: everybody occupies a given place in society and etiquette

makes sure people stay where they belong; it has, in other words, a gate-
keeping function. This weeding or sieving aspect (see Chap. 2) comes
particularly to the fore in definitions from the UK corpus.
This 1830s definition develops a similar concept. To keep people in
their proper place, etiquette forms an impassable obstacle:
Etiquette is the barrier which society draws around itself as a protection

against offences the “law” can not touch—it is a shield against the intru-
sion of the impertinent, the improper, and the vulgar— a guard against
those obtuse persons who, having neither talent nor delicacy, would be
continually thrusting themselves into the society of men to whom their
presence might (from the difference of feeling and habit) be offensive, and
even insupportable. (Day 18362/1834: 11, original emphasis)
Etiquette is a “barrier”, a “shield”, a “guard” that screens off a section of

society from the “impertinent”, the “improper”, the “vulgar” and the
“obtuse”. This definition introduces etiquette as an exclusionary practice,
designed to keep undesirable individuals out. It is implied, however, that
people who do not belong to these categories can pass. There is an inter-
esting use of the term ‘law’ here with regard to offences that cannot be
dealt with by ordinary law. The reference is to duels, which were seen as
the only possible way to restore one’s honour after certain offences.
The next definition is again an early one, from 1837. The initial chap-
ter of the book is called Etiquette:
Etiquette is the law established by the best society for the regulation of its
members, and all who enter this circle must bow to its regulations, or
become objects of its scorn. Etiquette is necessary, not only to the comfort,
but to the very existence of society; it is a guard against the intrusion of
those whose habits would render them obnoxious, and to those alone its
forms are an impassable barrier. This necessary barrier it would be unwise,
as it is impossible to remove, but to enable many to pass it, who were not
born or educated in “Society” by imparting the necessary information—we
shall proceed to detail
THE DEMANDS OF SOCIETY
[…]. (Freeling 1837: 1–2)
120 A. Paternoster
It contains the usual law metaphor, but this definition emphasises the
gatekeeping aspect. In contrast to the previous definition, this one is
more explicit about the enabling role of etiquette as a guide offering
admittance. Conform to the rules—which the book is about to explain
for those who are “not born or educated” into “best society”—and you
can enter; do not comply at your own peril. This definition includes an
explicit reference to the upwardly mobile.
A Manual of Etiquette for Ladies: Or, True Principles of Politeness from
1856 also tackles the definition of etiquette in the first lines of the text.
As before, this text highlights inclusion and focusses on the requirements
to get accepted in fashionable society:
Etiquette is that rule of conduct which is recognised by polite society, and

to which all who desire to be admitted into fashionable circles must sub-
mit. It is the passport without which the traveller cannot proceed on his
journey; the law to which obedience must be rendered; the sovereign to
whose authority allegiance is due; the silken cord which unites the gentle.
Out of society people may do as they list, but if they seek the comfort and
happiness of companionship, they must be ready to give up somewhat of
their private right for the public good, and no longer be their own law-
makers, but accept as their code of manners the legalities of polite life. (A
Manual of Etiquette for Ladies 1856: 3)
Besides the usual references to a mandatory, law-like etiquette forming a

“code” of “legalities”, the definition links etiquette to the social elite, or
the “fashionable circles”, protected by carefully guarded borders. Etiquette
is at the same time the practice characterising the elite, the “silken cord
with unites the gentle”, but also what allows outsiders to cross the border
and be “admitted”: it is the passport that lets you in, “the token by which
the polite are recognised, and the standard by which all aspirants are
tried” (A Manual of Etiquette for Ladies 1856: 3).
The following definition is also from the 1850s: “Etiquette is a name
given to the code of laws established by the highest class of society for
regulating the conduct, words and actions of those admitted within its
sphere […].” (Etiquette for Gentlemen 1852: 7). The usual defining traits
are the compulsory aspect (“code of laws”) and the elitist aspect (“the
highest class of society”). The gatekeeping function, however, receives

special attention. Etiquette is “an effectual barrier against the innovations
of the vulgar; it is a rubicon no one can pass without submitting to its
demands” (Etiquette for Gentlemen 1852: 7). Clearly, the Rubicon is not
impassable (the point being that Caesar did cross it). The book will,
indeed, be “imparting the necessary information” to “enable those who
have not been fortunate enough to be born or educated in ‘good society,’
to lay a just claim to be admitted within its pale” (Etiquette for Gentlemen
1852: 8). Admittance is possible, only, the entry requirements are very
strict: “[…] all who would be acknowledged as its members, must submit
to its demands” (Etiquette for Gentlemen 1852: 8). Only those who per-
fectly conform can enter. This definition is mirrored in the companion
publication (Etiquette for Ladies 1852: 9). All the references to etiquette
as a barrier highlight the ambiguity (discussed in Chap. 2) characterising
the relationship between etiquette, as an exclusionary social practice, and
etiquette books, as an inclusivist endeavour.
3.3.4 The Educational Aspect
De Nogent’s etiquette book (see Sect. 3.2.1) addresses young adults, peo-
ple emerging from the relative seclusion of school life and in need of
guidance on their entry in society. Of course, attending a boarding school
or having private tutors at home indicates an elitist upbringing. Matilde
Serao widens the range of ‘novices’ and calls etiquette “una seconda edu-
cazione” ‘a second education’ of those usages which an adult might have
missed out on for a multitude of reasons:
Ma vi è una seconda educazione, che viene dalla convivenza sociale,

dall’uso, dalla regione, in cui si vive, dal paese dove sempre si dimora, dal
ceto, cui si appartiene: una seconda educazione, di cui non tutti possono
possedere il segreto, per tante circostanze, per esistenza segregata, per poco
amore della società, per vita assorbita dal lavoro e dallo studio, per naturale
timidezza, per carattere chiuso, per cento altre ragioni. Di questa seconda
educazione, che parte dalle grandi tradizioni patriarcali e giunge alle raf-
finatezze dello chic di domani, si occupa il Saper vivere. ‘But there is a sec-
ond education, which comes from social interaction, from usage, from the
122 A. Paternoster
region in which one lives, from the village where one always dwells, from
the class to which one belongs: a second education, of which not everyone
can possess the secret, because of so many circumstances: a segregated exis-
tence, little love of society, a life absorbed by work and study, natural shy-
ness, an introverted nature and a hundred other reasons. It is this second
education, from the great ancient traditions to the refinements of the chic
of tomorrow, which forms the subject matter of Saper vivere.’ (Gibus del
Mattino 1900: Prefazione)
Etiquette books allow all kinds of late bloomers to catch up with this
second education, but they mainly target young adults and the
upwardly mobile.
Section 2.4 has discussed the use of etiquette books as reference works.
Toni Weller rightly insists on the educational role of etiquette books
within the Victorian “emerging information culture” as they provide
“practical knowledge” on topics such as “how to buy a house, or avoid ill
health”, “carving”, “legislation”, “hiring and firing servants” (2014: 667).
Indeed, French sources, for example, talk about the need to take out dif-
ferent types of insurances (e.g. Nogent, mme de 1886; Bassanville,
Comtesse de 1867); Italian ones dedicate a lot of space to children’s early
years and include long chapters on nursery hygiene and on children’s
diseases (Vertua Gentile 1897; Jolanda 1909/1906).
3.3.5 Conclusion
The four defining aspects of etiquette encountered in Sect. 3.2—the cus-

tomary, normative, gatekeeping and educational aspect—all return in
definitions provided by the sources themselves. The frequent gatekeeping
metaphors highlight the elitist nature of etiquette, but it is understood
that it only wants to keep out people who refuse to comply with the rules.
Mostly, metaphors are socially inclusive, such as the one comparing eti-
quette to a passport. The social divide is also seen as a Rubicon, which, as
Roman history teaches, is a passable obstacle. In order to gain admit-
tance, perfect compliance will be of the essence. In this sense, the gate-
keeping function reinforces the normative aspect.
Note that most of the sources providing a definition predate the 1860s.
Apparently, from this decade on, etiquette authors consider definitions
largely redundant. Indeed, as seen above, a good number of later eti-
quette sources have neither preface nor introduction.
3.4 Synonymy and Collocations of ‘Etiquette’

in My Self-built Corpus
The second part of the chapter turns to corpus linguistics, to understand
if the semantic traits isolated so far with close reading are confirmed (or
not) with an automated methodology and if it can bring up other defin-
ing traits. The criteria underlying my self-built collection of etiquette
sources have been discussed in Sect. 2.5. Whereas Chap. 2 has presented
the various linguacultures under scrutiny in a chronological order, here,
because the analysis is increasingly of a semantic nature, I keep language
families together for major clarity. Therefore, the order will be Germanic
languages (US-English, UK-English, Dutch) followed by Romance lan-
guages (French and Italian).
Sketch Engine (https://www.sketchengine.eu/, accessed 30.12.2021)
provides two functions that are particularly useful to establish synonymy
and collocates. Firstly, the Thesaurus provides “an automatically gener-
ated list of synonyms or words belonging to the same category (semantic
field)” https://www.sketchengine.eu/guide/thesaurus-synonyms-antonyms-
similar-words/). This function finds words that have similar collocations:
Synonyms are identified automatically based on the context in which they

occur. This draws on the theory of distributional semantics which says, in a
nutshell, that words that appear in the same context are similar in meaning.
In Sketch Engine, this means that words which keep similar collocations
are similar in meaning. (https://www.sketchengine.eu/guide/thesaurus-
synonyms-antonyms-similar-words/—toggle-id-3, accessed 30.12.2021)
As a result, more frequent terms will generate richer collocations and this
will make the Thesaurus more reliable. Since I am looking for synonyms
of words that are particularly frequent in the subcorpora (‘etiquette’,
124 A. Paternoster
étiquette, etiquette, etichetta), the function should work well. However,

with the smaller corpora for Dutch and Italian, less useful results appear,
that is, words with a meaning that is not similar to the search term.
Indeed, Sketch Engine compares the collocates without knowing directly
the similarity in meaning; therefore, the Thesaurus can occasionally gen-
erate words that should not be included. The remedy, to use larger cor-
pora, is not workable in my case, since the Dutch and the Italian corpus
contain all the digital sources available.
Secondly, I search for collocates, that is, words that frequently co-occur
with the search term, as this provides meaningful insights into word use.
The Word Sketch function shows the collocates organised in various
grammatical relations: for example, verbs of which the search term is a
subject or an object, adjectives, prepositional phrases, pronominal pos-
sessors… As above, the collocates may point to semantic traits that are
relevant for etiquette, but this time they come from different grammati-
cal categories (verbs, adjectives, other nouns in the case of the search term
‘etiquette’, which is a noun itself ). To analyse semantic traits, out of the
collocation categories suggested by Sketch Engine, I only retain semanti-
cally rich categories, such as modifiers, verbs having ‘etiquette’ as subject
or object, and nouns linked to ‘etiquette’ by the conjunctions ‘and/or’.
The combination of the qualitative and quantitative methods will lead to
a working definition of etiquette in Sect. 3.5.
3.4.1 The US-English Corpus
The Thesaurus gives the following word cloud of potential synonyms for
‘etiquette’. Figure 3.2 reproduces the visualisation of a word cloud con-
taining the top 40 synonyms for ‘etiquette’ in the US-English corpus,
based on 2000 hits for ‘etiquette’. The words closest to the centre have the
highest similarity score: ‘custom’, in the centre, is surrounded by ‘form’,
‘rule’ and ‘manner’. ‘Dress’ and ‘duty’ come next and they are followed by
‘call’. The Thesaurus shows that American etiquette is mainly about
Fig. 3.2 Word Cloud showing the top 40 hits in the Sketch Engine Thesaurus for
the noun ‘etiquette’ in the US-English corpus
‘customs’, it regards habits, usages, which vary with time and place. The
term ‘use’ has a similar meaning. The central position of ‘rule’ points to
the compulsory character of etiquette, and so are ‘observance’, ‘duty’ and
‘law’. ‘Form’ and ‘manner’ show that etiquette is associated with outward,
surface behaviour. A “call”, or a visit, is a fixed circumstance of etiquette,
while ‘circumstance’ itself is a more peripherical term. The terms ‘acquain-
tance’, ‘friend’, ‘circle’, ‘society’, ‘people’, ‘member’, ‘invitation’ link eti-
quette to networking skills. ‘Position’ indicates the importance of social
hierarchy. ‘Woman’ is more prominent than ‘man’, it shows the prevail-
ing gender of the ideal reader. Clearly, some results do not function as
synonyms, such as ‘dress’, ‘work’, ‘letter’, but they are still relevant as they
indicate topics treated in etiquette books.
Figure 3.3 shows the collocates of ‘etiquette’. The modifiers are not
useful. The hits in capital letters are part of running titles which appear
on every other page or every page in a particular source. When it comes
to the verbs, the collocates ‘observe’, ‘require’, ‘permit’, ‘prescribe’ point
to the compulsory aspect of etiquette, as is the adjective ‘strict’. The ‘and/
or’ category includes the term that appeared as a strong synonym in the
Thesaurus, ’custom’, whilst ‘girls’ represent implied readers.
126 A. Paternoster
US-English corpus
3.4.2 The UK-English Corpus
For the UK-English Thesaurus, Sketch Engine provides the following

visualisation. ‘Etiquette’ in the UK corpus has slightly less hits, with
1611 occurrences. In comparison with the US corpus, the results of
Fig. 3.4 are rather consistent for the top similarity scores. Where the
US Thesaurus has ‘custom’, ‘form’, ‘rule’, ‘manner’, the UK Thesaurus
has ‘manner’, ‘rule’ in the centre with ‘custom’ and ‘form’ being slightly
more peripheral. ‘Law’ is a lot more central than it was in the US cor-
pus. ‘Fashion’ and ‘habit’ point to the customary aspect. Both ‘man’
and ‘lady’ are present, this time with ‘man’ being more central than
‘lady’. ‘Society’, ‘circle’, ‘introduction’, ‘friend’ point to networking;
besides ‘position’ we now find ‘rank’. ‘Politeness’ and ‘kind’ indicate
moral values. The collocates in Fig. 3.5 also display results that are
the noun ‘etiquette’ in the UK-English corpus
similar to the ones found for the US-English corpus. In Fig. 3.5 the
modifier category encounters the same problem with running titles
seen above. More useful results are ‘English’, ‘strict’ and ‘modern’.
‘English’ points to an awareness of cross-cultural differences. ‘Modern’
points to the fact that the rules vary with time and require regular
updating. However, the most prominent aspect is the compulsory one.
Collocates related to the compulsory aspect are: the modifier ‘strict’,
the verbs ‘observe’, ‘require’, ‘prescribe’ (which are very similar to the
ones found for the US corpus), next to ‘observance’ and ‘rule’ in the
‘and/or’ list. Interestingly, the ‘and/or’ list includes ‘precedence’, which
mirrors the Thesaurus term ‘rank’. ‘Gentleman’ and ‘lady’ mirror the
Thesaurus terms ‘man’ and ‘lady’. The concordances associated with
‘feeling’ point to genuine kindness.
3.4.3 The Dutch Corpus
The Dutch corpus is only half the size of the preceding ones, and Sketch
Engine might offer less reliable results. Furthermore, the problem is com-
pounded by the presence of spelling variants. Etiquette appears with the
spelling variants etikette (2 occurrences) and étiquette (10 occurrences).
The Concordance gives 118 hits for *ti*ette. In Dutch, compound nouns
are written as one word and there are 4 occurrences where etiquette is
part of a compound noun: tafeletiquette (3 occurrences) and
128 A. Paternoster
UK-English corpus
etiquettegebod (1 occurrence), resp. ‘table etiquette’ and ‘etiquette rule’.

Unfortunately, the Thesaurus search function does not allow for the use
of an asterisk, and I searched for the most frequent form etiquette, which
has 103 hits, only a fraction of the frequencies found for the US and the
UK corpus.
The Thesaurus for etiquette is visualised as follows in Fig. 3.6. The
most similar term is welvoeglijkheid ‘propriety’, ‘appropriateness’.
the noun etiquette in the Dutch corpus
Welvoeglijkheid comes from the verb zich voegen ‘to adapt (to the rules)’,
‘comply’. It refers to the compulsory aspect of etiquette, which is echoed
in the term voorschrift ‘rule’ or ‘precept’. Other relevant terms, though
with a lower similarity score, are schijn ‘appearance’, voorstelling ‘intro-
duction’, feest ‘party’, ‘celebration’, dood, ‘death, probably in context of
mourning etiquette, and, finally, week ‘week’, probably referring to the
correct timing of return visits.
The collocates of etiquette are shown in Fig. 3.7. For Dutch, the verbs
give less relevant results, except for willen ‘to want’: the phrase etiquette
wil ‘etiquette wants’ points to the compulsory aspect. The modifiers veel-
eischend ‘demanding’, streng ‘strict’, uitgezocht ‘exquisite’, ‘perfect’ also
highlight the compulsory aspect. Hoofs ‘chivalric’ refers to the set of
norms governing courteous behaviour of the medieval elite. In the cate-
gory ‘and/or’ the term regel ‘rule’ mirrors voorschrift ‘rule’ present in the
Thesaurus.
Overall, although the occurrences are low, both the Thesaurus and the
Word Sketch highlight the compulsory aspect of Dutch etiquette.
130 A. Paternoster
Fig. 3.7 Word Sketch in Sketch Engine for the noun etiquette in the Dutch corpus
3.4.4 The French Corpus
The French corpus is bigger than the UK and the US ones; however,
étiquette is not as frequent as its English counterpart. At only 226 hits, it
raises the question of why this term is low. The logical answer is that
French uses another term to express the meaning of ‘etiquette’ and the
Thesaurus Word Cloud in Fig. 3.8 proves very useful to find the obvious
candidate, savoir-vivre, which was already discussed in Sect. 2.4.1 as a
synonym for étiquette (and also for politesse).
In Fig. 3.8, just as for the Dutch Thesaurus, which had welvoeglijkheid
‘propriety’ as the most similar word, the most central word for the French
Thesaurus is convenance ‘propriety’, which points to the compulsory
aspect of etiquette. The same is true for bienséance, which, although less
Fig. 3.8 Word cloud showing the top 40 hits in the Sketch Engine Thesaurus for
the noun étiquette in the French corpus
central, has the same meaning of ‘propriety’. After ton ‘ton’—mainly as

bon ton ‘good ton’—the third highest similarity score belongs to savoir-
vivre. The Thesaurus appears to indicate that étiquette and savoir-vivre are
potential synonyms. This confirms that Fisher’s decision to use the term
manuel de savoir-vivre to indicate etiquette books is a sensible one (Fisher
1992). Other similar words are règle ‘rule’, cérémonie ‘ceremony’ and céré-
monial ‘ceremonial’, which point to normative, pattern-like behaviour in
set circumstances. The terms politesse ‘politeness’ and civilité ‘civility’ are
used to compare etiquette to fraternal love, with related terms Dieu ‘God’
and charité ‘charity’. Mode ‘fashion’ and usage ‘usage’ refer to the custom-
ary aspect. Noce ‘wedding’, réception ‘reception’ and bal ‘ball’ are fixed
circumstances within etiquette (and recurring chapters in etiquette books).
As savoir-vivre is almost four times more frequent than étiquette, with
831 occurrences,3 it makes sense to consider the Thesaurus for savoir-
vivre in Fig. 3.9 and to compare it to the Thesaurus for étiquette. Without
going into too much detail, the central positions of convenance, biensé-
ance ‘propriety’, étiquette and ton ‘ton’ make this word cloud very similar
to the previous one. However, what really stands out in Fig. 3.9 is the
central position of politesse ‘politeness’, which has the highest similarity
score, whereas in Fig. 3.8 it is on the periphery. Indeed, Sect. 2.5.1 has
3
The figure does not include 99 occurrences of the spelling variant savoir vivre, without the hyphen,
which I cannot use as a search string in the Thesaurus.
132 A. Paternoster
Fig. 3.9 Word cloud showing the top 40 hits in the Sketch Engine Thesaurus for
the noun savoir-vivre in the French corpus
discussed the fact that savoir-vivre appears both in etiquette and in con-
duct titles and that it has two meanings: etiquette (related to formal con-
ventions) and politeness (related to the moral virtue of charity). This is
now confirmed by its word cloud. Even in etiquette books, where savoir-
vivre is supposed to mean etiquette, it still interacts closely with polite-
ness. Of course, a word cloud does not tell us much about the exact
nature of the link between savoir-vivre and politesse—that is, without
looking at the concordances—because the link might be a negated one
(see Jucker 2020a: 142 on this point).
Figure 3.10 shows the collocates of étiquette. As for the other lan-
guages, the compulsory aspect dominates. Modifiers include inflexible
‘rigid’ and sévère ‘strict’. The compulsory aspect also comes to the fore in
both verb categories with suivre ‘to follow’, régler ‘to regulate’, permettre
‘to permit’, exiger ‘to demand’ and vouloir ‘to want’. Unsurprisingly, the
‘and/or’ collocates include savoir-vivre, which was so prominent in the
Thesaurus. Relevant nouns are usage ‘custom’, besides visite ‘visit’, table
‘table’ and marié ‘spouse’, which all refer to key circumstances within
etiquette: dinners, visits, weddings. Marié ‘spouse’ also mirrors noce ‘wed-
ding’ found in the word cloud.
Fig. 3.10 Word Sketch in Sketch Engine for the noun étiquette in the French corpus
3.4.5 The Italian Corpus
Being of similar size to the Dutch corpus, the results for the Italian cor-
pus may be less reliable. Furthermore, etichetta only has 48 hits, so the
frequency might just be too low. Figure 3.11 shows the Thesaurus Word
Cloud. The results are quite inconclusive. In the centre utilità ‘useful-
ness’, soccorso ‘help’, ‘assistance’ and difesa ‘defence’ indicate concerns of a
more practical nature. Cena ‘dinner’ is a stock circumstance of etiquette.
However, no potential synonyms are provided.
Figure 3.12 shows the collocates of Italian etichetta. The collocations
produce more meaningful results than the word cloud. The modifiers
cortigiano ‘courtly’ and militare ‘military’ indicate the neighbouring fields
of court and military protocol. Soverchio ‘excessive’, mezzo ‘semi’, alto
‘high’, grande ‘elaborate’ and certo ‘certain’ indicate various degrees of for-
mality, as is ufficiali ‘official’ in the ‘and/or’ list. The verbs regolare ‘regu-
late’ and richiedere ‘demand’ highlight the compulsory nature while suol
134 A. Paternoster
the noun etichetta in the Italian corpus
Fig. 3.12 Word Sketch in Sketch Engine for the noun etichetta in the Italian corpus
‘is in the habit of ’ (from the defective verb solere) points to the customary
nature of etichetta. The ‘and/or’ collocates are less conclusive, with visita
‘visit’ and riunione ‘gathering’ nevertheless highlighting the social nature
of etichetta, whereas sontuosità ‘lavishness’ points to spending patterns of
the social elite.
3.4.6 Conclusion
Section 3.4 has used a corpus toolbox to provide a quantitative analysis

of the search term ‘etiquette’ in the various subcorpora. The aim was to
check if the four semantic traits listed in Sect. 3.3 were confirmed for
etiquette and related terms in order to establish a provisional working
definition of etiquette. The two dominating semantic traits resulting
from the quantitative approach are the compulsory and the customary
nature of etiquette. The Word Sketches in particular show the promi-
nence of the compulsory aspect. The gatekeeping aspect is hardly present,
although some terms were relevant for networking, the work that goes on
either to maintain or to cross the social barrier. The educational aspect
was represented with the term politeness.
The quantitative analyses highlighted two new semantic traits:
• etiquette is organised in terms of social hierarchy (hierarchical aspect);

• etiquette is organised in terms of fixed social circumstances such as
visits, dinners, balls, receptions, weddings, funerals (schematic aspect).
The first trait was seen in the presence of terms like ‘position’, ‘rank’ and
‘precedence’. The second one regards the organisation of etiquette in
terms of recurring circumstances. The set circumstances will be discussed
in Chap. 5 and precedence in Chap. 7.
3.5 Conclusion
This chapter devoted to the “mention” of etiquette (Jucker 2020a: 20)
has combined two metapragmatic methodologies—close reading and
corpus linguistics—with a view to provide a provisional working
definition.
So far, the combined analysis has produced the following defining
traits of etiquette:
136 A. Paternoster
• Etiquette consists of an amoral set of conventions regulating outward

forms of behaviour, which are subject to variation in time and place
(customary aspect);
• it is highly compulsory and demands compliance with fine details
(normative aspect);
• it is associated with the social elite (gatekeeping aspect);
• it regards young adults and the upwardly mobile who are supposed to
have already acquired politeness, understood as the moral virtue of
fraternal love (educational aspect);
• it is organised in terms of social hierarchy (hierarchical aspect);
• it is organised in terms of recurring social circumstances such as visits,
dinners, balls, receptions, weddings, funerals (schematic aspect).
Moulded into a paragraph, my working definition (so far) for nineteenth-

century etiquette is the following one:
Etiquette is a set of conventions regulating social behaviour, which vary

with time and place. Etiquette is highly compulsory and the demand for
compliance performs a gatekeeping function, which forms a test of admis-
sion into the social elite. Although itself of an amoral nature, etiquette
derives morality from politeness, the moral virtue of fraternal love, which
young adults and the upwardly mobile are supposed to have acquired pre-
viously. Etiquette expresses close adherence to social hierarchy and is
organised in terms of recurring social circumstances such as visits, din-
ners, balls.
Chapter 4 looks beyond the data contained in my self-built corpus and

analyses the presence of the term ‘etiquette’ in large historical corpora and
in dictionaries, both historical and contemporary. This broader approach
will allow to go further back in time, beyond the limits set by my corpus
and will, quite naturally, lead to a discussion on the origin of etiquette.
Finally, this will result in an update of the working definition.
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4
The Origin of Etiquette
4.1 Introduction
The previous chapter used my self-built corpus of etiquette books to
establish a provisional definition for the concept of nineteenth-century
etiquette; the current chapter looks beyond etiquette books and investi-
gates how etiquette is talked about in other textual genres. Section 4.2
swops my small-scale corpus for large historical corpora. After tentative
explorations based on Google N-gram Viewer, the chapter swiftly moves
on to large historical corpora: for English, the Corpus of Late Modern
English Texts (CLMET) and the Corpus of Historical American English
(COHA); for Dutch, Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
(DBNL) and Delpher; for French, Frantext; for Italian, Morfologia
dell’italiano in diacronia (MIDIA) and Corpus diacronico dell’italiano
scritto (DiaCORIS). These historical corpora will help establish first
occurrences of the term ‘etiquette’ and how its use develops over time.
These large corpora rarely include politeness metadiscourse, so the find-
ings in 4.2 have a pronounced first-order character.
144 A. Paternoster
Section 4.3 confronts the quantitative findings resulting from the large
historical corpora with dictionaries, both historical and contemporary:
first occurrences, definitions, the addition of extended meanings and ety-
mology will be compared with the previous quantitative analysis. This
part of the analysis loses the marked first-order perspective of 4.2, as it
uses findings from lexicography and etymology, which occupy a second-
order perspective. Methodologically, I find it important to consult dic-
tionaries after having performed a first-order vocabulary study, to avoid
being limited by a preconceived idea of etiquette.
Both the use of large corpora and dictionaries will move the analysis
further back in time. Unsurprisingly so, Terkourafi (2011) suggests that
descriptive rules precede prescriptive ones: the data gathered in this chap-
ter confirm, indeed, that etiquette was already talked about in large cor-
pora and lexicalised in historical dictionaries before etiquette rules were
written down in the nineteenth century. To put it simply, first there was
etiquette, then there were etiquette books. The presumed timeline goes as
follows: first there was etiquette at court (seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries), then it moved out of court into aristocratic society (the mid-
dle years of the eighteenth century), then it was written down to allow
the wealthy bourgeoisie to move into aristocratic society (beginning nine-
teenth century). Arditi (1994) links the appearance of the word ‘etiquette’
in Chesterfield to the eighteenth-century hegemony of the British aris-
tocracy. Although I do not agree with Arditi’s chronology—he claims
Chesterfield invented the term (1994: 181)—he convincingly argues that
the emergency of amoral etiquette is linked to the power of the aristoc-
racy as a class and indicates a rupture with the absolutist world, where the
moral standard is set by the monarch as the representative of God
on Earth.
The interrogation of diachronic corpora and dictionaries neatly shows
how the term ‘etiquette’ spreads through Europe as a borrowing: the term
etiqueta is first used in Spanish, from where it spreads to French, then to
Italian, soon after to Dutch and English, within a time span going from
the sixteenth century to 1737. In all four languages the earliest occur-
rences refer to Spanish court protocol. The chapter firmly establishes (a)
that society etiquette originates within court protocol and (b) that the
meaning of society etiquette was emerging in the middle years of the
4 The Origin of Etiquette 145
eighteenth century (1730s–1760s) when the political and cultural pull of

the royal palaces was waning. Given the historical pre-eminence of France
as the country in which étiquette is first used in the meaning of court
protocol outside Spain, Section 4.4 sheds light on aspects that are shared
between French written court etiquette and subsequent etiquette books,
taking Napoleon Bonaparte’s imperial etiquette as a starting point.
Finally, in 4.5, the new findings are used to update the working defini-
tion of nineteenth-century etiquette.
4.2 ‘Etiquette’ in Historical Corpora

Chapter 3 used the data provided by my 4-million-word corpus of eti-
quette books. Here, the analysis moves beyond etiquette books and inves-
tigates how the term ‘etiquette’ and its translations étiquette, etichetta,
etiquette are used in other types of discourse, which are retrieved via his-
torical corpora often comprising hundreds of millions of words. The type
of discourse accessed depends on the composition of the corpora, which
aim to achieve balance and representativeness, the two criteria ensuring
that findings may be generalised to an entire language. As historical cor-
pora become bigger and have a better genre-balance, they too allow for
broad generalisations. However, for the source material of the past the
researcher should always be aware of the data problem: the “evidence is
seriously skewed and patchy” (Jucker 2020a: 28). The further we go back
in time, the lower the literacy rates, with many people having no “access
to” and, indeed, no “need” to use “written texts” (Jucker 2020a: 28).
However, whilst in the past historical pragmatics preferred to work with
so-called oral genres (Culpeper and Kytö 2010), that is, speech-related
genres such as dialogues, theatre plays, witness dispositions and epistolary
sources, as they would have been more representative of “actual spoken
language”, there is now a trend to welcome “all types of written texts as
communicative events in their own right” (Jucker 2020a: 28; on dia-
chronic corpus pragmatics see Taavitsainen et al. 2014; Taavitsainen
2018). At any rate, since the aim is to perform a vocabulary study into
the mention of a politeness-related term and not a study into patterns of
language use, these considerations are less important here.
146 A. Paternoster
This section endeavours to study the diachronic development of the

terms ‘etiquette’/étiquette/etichetta/etiquette: when do the terms first
appear, do they have currency at all outside the dedicated genres of eti-
quette books and how does the use change over time? In other words, did
people broadly write about etiquette, when did they start being interested
in it and how did their interest evolve over time? From a comparative
perspective, the various corpora will show in which country the term
emerges first, to which other countries it subsequently spread and in what
order. Importantly, the first occurrences also indicate the type of context
in which the term emerges. For every language, the section starts with a
quick glance at Google Ngram Viewer (also called Google Books Ngram
Viewer, see Michel et al. 2010). Although the amount of data used for
this online search engine reaches hundreds of billions of words, its use
carries a considerable amount of risk. OCR may be inaccurate; texts may
be incorrectly dated and there is an overabundance of scientific literature
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Ngram_Viewer, accessed
22.12.2021). Google Ngram Viewer will only be used here to give a first,
wide-angle indication of diachronic developments in the various lingua-
cultures under examination. After that, the analysis switches to historical
corpora. The order in which languages are treated is the same as in Chap.
3, keeping Germanic and Romance languages together for the purpose of
clarity.
4.2.1 US Data
Google Ngram Viewer, https://books.google.com/ngrams (accessed

20.2.2022) provides the following graph for American English (2012).
Figure 4.1 shows how ‘etiquette’ emerges in the first decennia of the eigh-
teenth century; however, only in the 1790s does its usage start to rise.
There is a steady climb culminating in an 1894 peak. The peak is fol-
lowed by a slow descent, which carries on until the 1980s when the trend
is inversed. In 2016, the trend is still upwards. The twenty-first-century
rise reflects the current interest in etiquette, which was discussed in the
Introduction, with particular reference to US-based Twitter accounts
dealing with social and business etiquette.
Fig. 4.1 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ in American English (2012) (Google Books

Ngram Viewer)
A cautionary note about polysemy is needed here. Whilst Dutch eti-

quette, French étiquette and Italian etichetta are also used to indicate a
‘label’, in English this is hardly the case. The Oxford English Dictionary
(https://www.oed.com/, accessed 22.12.2012) lists a meaning of ‘label’
for ‘etiquette’, but it is used “chiefly in French or other non-English-
speaking contexts”.
The Corpus of Historical American English (COHA, https://www.
english-corpora.org/coha/) 1820–2010 comprises more than 475 million
words in more than 100,000 individual texts. The corpus aims to achieve
balance by genre and subgenre across the decades:
For example, fiction accounts for 48-55% of the total in each decade
(1810s-2000s), and the corpus is balanced across decades for sub-genres
and domains as well (e.g. by Library of Congress classification for non-
fiction; and by sub-genre for fiction – prose, poetry, drama, etc). This bal-
ance across genres and sub-genres allows researchers to examine changes
and be reasonably certain that the data reflects actual changes in the "real
world", rather than just being artifacts of a changing genre balance. (https://
www.english-corpora.org/coha.asp, accessed 25.11.2021)
148 A. Paternoster
occurrences pmw
6.47
6.08 6.18 6.17 6.1
5.44
5.18
4.9
4.59 4.51
3.91
3.29 3.32 3.1
2.74
2.48 2.47
1.41 1.63 1.47
Fig. 4.2 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ (per million words) across 20 decades from
1820s to 2010s (COHA)
Figure 4.2 shows the occurrences of the term ‘etiquette’ in the Corpus of
Historical American English. In the 1820s, the first decade included in
the COHA, the word ‘etiquette’ already has some currency, which is
going up until the 1850s. From the 1850s the curve plateaus until the
1900s, with a trough in the 1870s, probably representing the aftermath
of the Civil War. After the 1900s, the curve starts to decline. Usage
steadily falls until the 1980s, after which it starts to recover, confirming
the current rise seen in Fig. 4.1. Overall, Google Books Ngram Viewer
and the COHA provide roughly similar findings.
In the Evans Early American Imprint Collection (https://quod.lib.
umich.edu/e/evans/, accessed 25.11.2021) the earliest occurrence of ‘eti-
quette’ is in 1768. It occurs in A sentimental journey through France and
Italy. By Mr. Yorick, pseudonym of Laurence Sterne (1713-1768). This is
the passage containing the first occurrence:
I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an account

of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was; and only added,
that if Monsieur had forgot (par hazard) to answer Madame’s letter, the
arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover the faux pas;—and if not,
that things were only as they were.
Now I was not altogether sure of my etiquette, whether I ought to have

wrote or no; but if I had—a devil himself could not have been angry: ’twas
but the officious zeal of a well-meaning creature for my honour; and how-
ever he might have mistook the road—or embarrassed me in so doing—his
heart was in no fault—I was under no necessity to write—and what
weighed more than all—he did not look as if he had done amiss. (Sterne
2005/1768: 44-45)
From this early occurrence in the English language, etiquette means soci-
ety etiquette: a conundrum of society etiquette (to write or not to write)
is framed as a concern for a social ‘ought’ and an attempt at avoiding a
blunder.
4.2.2 UK Data
Google N-gram viewer provides the following graph for British English
(2012) (Fig. 4.3). The graph is roughly similar to Fig. 4.1 documenting
American English usage of ‘etiquette’. For British English, the rise
Fig. 4.3 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ in British English (2012) (Google Books

Ngram Viewer)
150 A. Paternoster
initiates earlier, in the 1760s. It peaks in 1907 and the downward trend
is inverted in the 1980s.
The Corpus of Late Modern English Texts, version 3.1 (CLMET3.1,
https://perswww.kuleuven.be/~u0044428/downloads/clmet3_1/) is a
34-million-word genre-balanced historical corpus covering British
English from 1710 to 1924, based on public-domain text material. The
texts making up the corpus have all been written by British authors who
are native speakers of English. The corpus covers five major genres: narra-
tive fiction, narrative non-fiction, drama, letters and treatises, in addition
to a number of unclassified texts. I used AntConc 3.4.3m to access
CLMET3.1. The normalised occurrences of ‘etiquette’ have been put
into quarter centuries as this is how the corpus organises the metadata
(Diller et al. 2010) (Fig. 4.4).
Figure 4.4 shows how occurrences emerge in the third quarter of the
eighteenth century. The curve rises steadily with a peak in the last quarter
of the nineteenth century before it starts descending. The first text that
contains the term ‘etiquette’ is the same as above: Laurence Sterne’s 1768
A sentimental Journey through France and Italy. As above, the Google
Books Ngram Viewer and CLMET provide roughly similar findings.
occurrences pmw
9.38
5.91 6.15
5.02
3.98
3.07
2.62
0 0
Fig. 4.4 Frequency of ‘etiquette’ (per million words) across nine quarter centu-
ries from 1700 to 1924 (CLMET3.1)
In regard to other historical corpora, it is worth noting that the Early

English Books Online or EEBO (https://www.english-corpora.org/eebo/,
accessed 25.11.2021), which contains 765 million words in 25,000 texts
from the 1470s until the 1690s, does not return results for ‘etiquette’.
The Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) “includes signifi-
cant English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United
Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of important
works from the Americas” (https://textcreationpartnership.org/tcp-texts/
ecco-tcp-eighteenth-century-collections-online/, accessed 25.11.2021).
The database contains more than 32 million pages of text and more than
180,000 titles. In ECCO the earliest occurrence is 1757, a decade earlier
in respect of the Laurence Sterne occurrence. The ECCO source is An
account of the European settlements in America: In six parts by Edmund
Burke (1757), Anglo-Irish philosopher and statesman:
They are temperate at their tables and in their cups, but from idleness and
constitution, their whole business is amour and intrigue; these they carry
on in the old Spanish taste, by doing and saying extravagant things, by bad
music, worse poetry, and excessive expences. Their ladies are little cele-
brated for their chastity or domestic virtues; but they are still a good deal
restrained by the old-fashioned etiquette, and they exert a genius which is
not contemptible, in combating the restraints which that lays them under.
(Burke Part III 1757: 234)
The extract contains a reference to Spain and Spanish society etiquette.

Also noteworthy for British English is that related metaterms such as
‘manners’, ‘politeness’ and ‘civility’ have an increase in usage after 1750,
as seen in 2.2.1, an observation that can be repeated here for the term
‘etiquette’.
4.2.3 Dutch Data
Google Books Ngram Viewer does not have a Dutch language setting.
However, the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren ‘Digital
Library for Dutch Literature’ (DBNL) provides an Ngram viewer (Lonij
and Stronks 2015; https://www.dbnl.org/ngram-viewer/, accessed
152 A. Paternoster
Fig. 4.5 Relative frequency of etiquette and etikette in Dutch from 1500 to 2022
(DBNL Ngram Viewer)
25.11.2021). The DBNL comprises 24 million pages from the thirteenth

to the twenty-first centuries and contains texts that are important for the
study of literature, linguistic and cultural history. Its NGram Viewer
allows searches for up to ten terms: Figure 4.5 reproduces the relative
frequencies for etiquette (in orange) and etikette (in grey). The software
predicts the relationship between the absolute frequency and the number
of digital texts available for that particular year.
In Fig. 4.5 the spelling variant ‘etiquette’ has some very early occur-
rences around 1500, followed by occasional usages until the mid-
eighteenth century, when its frequency rises. It is lower in the twentieth
century, but rises again before the start of the twenty-first century, show-
ing that in Dutch sources as well etiquette is making a comeback. The
spelling variant etikette, however, only emerges in the early nineteenth
century. Mid-nineteenth century appears as frequent as etiquette, but
then its frequency becomes low. Although potential polysemy with
etiquette in the meaning of ‘label’ is a concern for Dutch, this graph is

potentially accurate as it can be assumed that the meaning of ‘label’ would
occur more in non-literary texts.
The DBNL Ngram Viewer allows access to the corresponding sources.
The earliest hits are both found in the short story Lucrezia by novelist
Louis Couperus published in 1911 and set in 1505. Only in 1758 does
the first mention appear in a source that is effectively from that year: Kort
onderwys, hoedanig men de couranten best lezen en gebruiken kan ‘Short
instructions on how to best read and use newspapers’ by Johann Hermann
Knoop. Kort onderwys provides a lexicon to understand foreign and loan-
words used in newspaper, including etiquette with the following defini-
tion: “Voorschrift; regelement” (‘prescription; regulation’, Knoop 1758:
53). Its inclusion in the lexicon means that etiquette, although in use in
Dutch newspapers, is still a recent loanword that needs explaining. The
second occurrence of etiquette in this graph, from 1764 (see Sect. 4.3.4),
already has the meaning of society etiquette.
In comparison with the DBNL, Delpher (see https://www.delpher.nl,
accessed 25.11.2021) has a more balanced offer of text genres, with a
large component of non-fictional material: the corpus contains 120 mil-
lion pages from newspapers, magazines and books: 1.8 million newspa-
pers, 11 million pages of magazines and over 900,000 books from
between the fifteenth and the twenty-first centuries. Whilst the book sec-
tion shows first occurrences that are in line with the DBNL findings, the
newspaper section includes earlier hits. De Amsterdamse courant from the
8th of February 1725 includes this mention in the rubric Spanjen ‘Spain’.
Both this passage and the next one regard the young Queen widow of
Spain, born a French princess, and her treatment at the Spanish court as
determined by the Spanish court protocol. The correspondent writes
from Madrid:
De Koning en de Koninginne bewyzen haer alle mogelyke beleefdheden,

en so veele als de Etiquette van ons Hof het toestaet. ‘The king and queen
show her all possible civilities, and as many as the etiquette of our Court
allows.’ (https://www.delpher.nl/nl/kranten/view?query=etiquette&coll=d
dd&page=1&sortfield=date&identifier=ddd:010708641:mpeg21:a0001
&resultsidentifier=ddd:010708641:mpeg21:a0001&rowid=1)
154 A. Paternoster
The second mention comes from the same newspaper and is dated the
22nd of January 1726. This correspondent writes from France and reports
on the same widow, who has now returned to France:
Het Reglement, of Etiquette, nopens de Hofhouding van de jonge

Koninginne Wed. van Spanien, behelst onder andere dat […]. ‘The proto-
col, or Etiquette, concerning the Court of the young Queen widow of
Spain, includes amongst other thing, that […].’ (https://www.delpher.nl/
nl/kranten/view?query=etiquette&page=1&sortfield=date&coll=ddd&ide
ntifier=ddd:010708790:mpeg21:a0004&resultsidentifier=ddd:01070879
0:mpeg21:a0004&rowid=2)
Both mentions refer to Spanish court etiquette. Subsequent hits refer to

court protocol in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Russia (https://
www.delpher.nl/nl/kranten/results?query=etiquette&page=1&sortfield=
date&coll=ddd). Tellingly, Knoop (1758) explains the use of etiquette as
a loanword in newspapers and newspapers are the sources in which the
term effectively emerges first. The newspaper section in Delpher.nl allows
for a visualisation of the distribution of the occurrences over time.
Etiquette gives 50,000 hits until 1995. However, a verification of the
sources shows a problem with polysemy in newspapers: etiquette over-
whelmingly occurs in advertisements where it predominantly means a
‘label’ on a box, a bottle and so on. For example, in 1877, the occurrences
reach a peak of 1778: 1125 hits take place in adverts, where they mean
‘label’, while only 376 occur in articles, where the meaning of etiquette is
more present.
Overall, the first Dutch examples, dated 1725–1726, precede the
English one, from 1757, but they share with English a reference to Spain.
4.2.4 French Data
Google NGram Viewer gives the following results for French (2012)
(Fig. 4.6). Polysemy is also a concern with French because étiquette in the
meaning of ‘label’ is the first meaning listed by contemporary dictionaries
(see Dictionnaire Le Grand Robert de la langue française, https://
Fig. 4.6 Frequency of étiquette in French (2012) (Google Books Ngram Viewer)
grandrobert.lerobert.com/, accessed 25.11.2021). The more we move to

the right-hand side of the graph, the more ‘labels’ are included, with an
increased presence of publications related to fashion and food. Therefore,
I am mainly interested in the left-hand side of the timeline: étiquette
emerges after 1700. It starts rising mid-eighteenth century, with a dis-
tinct peak for the 1820s and 1830s.
Frantext (https://www.frantext.fr, accessed 25.11.2021) is a full-text
database, comprising more than 3500 French language texts from in and
outside France, from the twelfth until the twentieth century. The full
database contains 260 million words; however, Frantext comprises several
predefined subcorpora going from old French to contemporary French.
Ten per cent of the texts have a scientific or technical content, while 90%
of texts are considered literary, covering a good number of different genres
such as novels, memoires, autobiographies, newspapers, letters, theatre,
poetry and essays.
Figure 4.7 covers the period between the 1580s, which witness the first
occurrence of the term étiquette, and the 1910s and comprises circa 125
156 A. Paternoster
Occurrences pmw
13.71
11.63
10.24
9.19
7.71 7.718.22 7.48
6.76 7.06
5.9 6.09
4.664.884.94.36 5
4.29
2.912.97 3.1 2.55
1.25 1.33 0.85 1.42
0.81
0 0.59 0.360.44 0 0.430.38
1690S
1750S
1880S
1580S
1590S
1600S
1610S
1620S
1630S
1640S
1650S
1660S
1670S
1680S
1700S
1710S
1720S
1730S
1740S
1760S
1770S
1780S
1790S
1800S
1810S
1820S
1830S
1840S
1850S
1860S
1870S
1890S
1900S
1910S
Fig. 4.7 Frequency of étiquette (per million words) across 34 decades from the
1580s to the 1910s (Frantext)
million words. During most of the seventeenth century the occurrences

are few and far between, at about one per decade in raw figures, but in the
1690s the curve starts to rise. The curve follows a steady rise, with a
trough caused by the Revolution during which étiquette is something
people talk about less given its association with the aristocrats and the
Bourbon court. This trough is soon followed by a peak during the 1810s
and 1820s, which is caused by memorialists writing about their past at
the Bourbon and the Napoleonic courts, such as Germaine de Staël,
Emmanuel Las Cases and François-Auguste Mignet. This peak roughly
reflects the one found in Google NGram Viewer. The curve rises again
until the 1890s when it starts to decline.
I considered polysemy in 2 samples: all hits before 1760s and 100 hits
for 1840s. For both samples, étiquette in the meaning of ‘label’ accounts
for about 20% of the cases; therefore, I take Fig. 4.7 to be fairly accurate,
although it has limitations.
The first occurrence in Frantext belongs to a memorialist text, the
Registre-journal du règne de Henri III, t. 5, by Pierre de L’Estoile
(2001/1585-1587). The occurrence, from 1587, is part of Sonnet XIV,
which antiphrastically describes the cardinal ‘virtues’ of contemporary
soldiers, who, amongst other things, want to “loger sans etiquette”, ‘stay
at their lodgings without respecting etiquette’. The first source to use
étiquette as court protocol is a travel narrative called Relation du voyage

d'Espagne by Baronne Marie-Catherine Aulnoy Le Jumel de Barneville
(1691, see Fig. 4.8). This is the first of no less than five occurrences in the
same work:
Fig. 4.8 Title page (Aulnoy, Baronne d’ 1691). Reproduced from Google Books UK
158 A. Paternoster
Les rois d'Espagne couchent dans leur appartement et les reines dans le
leur: Mais celui-ci aime trop la reine pour avoir voulu se séparer d'elle.
Voici comment il est marqué dans l'étiquette que le roi doit être lorsqu'il
vient la nuit de sa chambre dans celle de la reine. ‘The kings of Spain sleep
in their apartments and the queens in theirs. But this king loves the queen
too much to want to part with her. This is what is marked in the protocol
concerning how the king should be when he goes at night from his room
in the queen's room.’ (Aulnoy, Baronne d’ 1691: 399-400)
Although d’Aulnoy did travel to Spain,1 her memoirs are classi-

fied as “pseudo-historical novels” by the Encyclopaedia Brittanica
(Brittanica 2021).
The Trésor de la langue française (1789–1960) is a 16-volume diction-
ary of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French, available in an elec-
tronic edition, the Trésor de la langue française informatisé (http://atilf.
atilf.fr/tlfv3.htm, accessed 4.1.2022). Its lemmas include history and ety-
mology sections, and for étiquette it includes two examples taken from
d’Aulnoy’s Relation du Voyage d’Espagne, which are different to the ones
included in Frantext: “j’ay apris qu’il y a de certaines règles établies chez
le Roi, que l’on suit depuis plus d’un sciècle, sans s’en éloigner en aucune
manière. On les appelle les étiquettes du Palais” ‘I have heard that there
are certain rules established with the King, which have been followed for
more than a century, without departing from them in any way. They are
called Palace protocols’; “comme il est marqué dans l’étiquette” ‘as it is
marked in the protocol’. Including these two hits, there are a total of
seven occurrences in d’Aulnoy’s memoirs.
French early usages of the term relate to the protocol of the Spanish
court. They echo the references to Spain and to various other court pro-
tocols seen in the preceding sections.
1
She leads a rather rocambolesque life, having to flee France after being involved in a case of defa-
mation against her husband, which costs two other men their head.
4.2.5 Italian Data
Polysemy thwarts any attempt at visualising the diachrony of the word

etichetta in the meaning of etiquette. Contemporary dictionaries list
etichetta under two different entries, one as “label” and a second one as
“etiquette” (see Vocabolario Treccani online, https://www.treccani.it/
vocabolario/, accessed 25.11.2021). This is because the words have dis-
tinct etymologies: Etichetta ‘label’ has its etymology in French étiquette
‘label’; etichetta ‘etiquette’ derives from Spanish etiqueta. The interest of
the Google NGram Viewer for Italian, therefore, only lies in the early
uses of the term. In Fig. 4.9 Italian etichetta emerges in the 1770s and this
is in line with the English findings.
For Italian I queried the following two historical corpora. The corpus
MIDIA, Morfologia dell’italiano in diacronia ‘Morphology of Italian in
diachrony’ (http://www.corpusmidia.unito.it/, accessed 25.11.2021),
contains 7.5 million words; it is the smallest historical corpus considered
here. It covers sources from the beginning of the thirteenth century until
1947. MIDIA achieves balance by using seven text genres: non-scientific
essays (including newspapers), scientific essays, legal and administrative
texts, ego documents (letters, diaries, etc.), poetry, literary prose and
Fig. 4.9 Frequency of etichetta in Italian (2012) (Google Books Ngram Viewer)
160 A. Paternoster
drama. The first occurrence is in 1757 in a work by Giuseppe Parini, an

author who embraced the values of the Enlightenment and was highly
critical of birth privilege. In the Dialogo sopra la nobiltà ‘Dialogue on
Nobility’ an aristocrat reflects on his social superiority:
Fa' tuo conto che, al mio primo uscir delle fasce, io non mi sentii sonare
mai altro all'orecchio, se non che io era troppo differente dagli altri uomini,
che io era cavaliere, che il cavaliere dee parlare, stare, moversi, chinarsi, non
già secondo che l'affetto o la natura gl'ispira, ma come richiede l'etichetta
e lo splendore della sua nascita. ‘Consider that, from my earliest years, I
never heard anything ringing in my ear, except that I was too different from
other men, that I was a nobleman, that a nobleman must speak, stand,
move, bow, not according to what feelings or nature inspire him to do, but
as required by the etiquette and the splendour of his birth.’ (Parini
1915/1757: 42)
There are two later hits in the time slot 1692–1840 and four hits between
1841 and 1947. Of these six occurrences, two have the meaning of
‘label’.
The second corpus is the Corpus diacronico dell’italiano scritto
(DiaCORIS) “diachronic corpus of written Italian” (http://corpora.dslo.
unibo.it/DiaCORIS/, accessed 25.11.2021). DiaCORIS only starts in
1861, but it is bigger than MIDIA, with 25 million words. DiaCORIS is
a historical reference corpus elaborated for written Italian until 2001. It
is divided into five different time slots, each containing 5 million words.
DiaCORIS aims to achieve balance by using texts taken from the follow-
ing genres: newspapers, prose fiction, essay writing, legal-administrative
writing and miscellanea. The miscellanea include popular novels, chil-
dren’s literature, serial novels, comic novels, translations, private and pub-
lic writings like papal encyclics (Onelli et al. 2006: 1214). Together,
fiction and miscellanea make up between 45% and 35% of the entire
corpus, depending on the time slot.
Given that the occurrences are fairly low, I manually checked for poly-
semy. Table 4.1 shows the number of occurrences of the noun etichetta
and the amount of times etichetta means ‘label’, per time slot:
Table 4.1 Overall occurrences of etichetta and occurrences of etichetta ‘label’,

per time slot (DiaCORIS)
Overall occurrences of etichetta Occurrences of
Time slot (‘etiquette’, ‘label’) etichetta ‘label’
1861–1900 18 8
1901–1920 29 23
1923–1945 25 20
1945–1967 42 19
1968–2001 58 47
There are far too many ‘labels’ to draw any meaningful conclusions about
the evolution of etichetta as ‘etiquette’.
4.2.6 Conclusion
The aim of this section was to see if people broadly were writing about
etiquette. We already know that etiquette books were a commercial suc-
cess in the nineteenth century, but is it also a concern outside this special-
ised genre? For both UK and US English, for French and Dutch, the
diachronic corpora, indeed, show peaks in the nineteenth century. Given
that occurrences are normalised, it is even possible to attempt cross-
cultural comparisons: the British and the French mention etiquette more
often than the Americans. The British talk most about etiquette in the
last quarter of the nineteenth century, but they are outperformed by the
French during the 1810s and the 1820s, a period rich in memorialist
writings dedicated to court life under the Bourbon kings and Napoleon.
Unfortunately, the Italian data do not allow similar comparisons.
Whenever it has been possible to produce a relatively reliable graph of the
distribution over time, similar patterns have emerged. Although the onset
of the curves takes place at different moments in time, their evolution is
similar: the curve is rising at the beginning of the nineteenth century; it
reaches a peak somewhere in the second half of the nineteenth century—
only for French does the peak occur during the 1810s and 1820s, how-
ever, there is a second peak during the 1890s—and falls towards the end
of the century or at the beginning of the twentieth century. The twentieth
162 A. Paternoster
century sees a trough for the nonconformist 1960s and 1970s (decades
that witness the Flower Power counterculture and student revolts, also
called the “period of the ‘Expressive Revolution’” (Wouters 2007: 167),
see Sect. 1.1) before usage rises again. Generalising, it is probably safe to
say that the nineteenth century—the second half in particular—is the
period in which etiquette is mentioned the most. This trend mirrors the
publication trend for etiquette books, which are most successful in the
second half of the nineteenth century. However, etiquette books do not
really figure as sources in these reference corpora. It seems plausible that,
because of socio-economic changes, etiquette becomes a concern for the
rising middle classes, it is increasingly talked about, and etiquette writers
exploit this new demand for guidance.
The respective timing of first occurrences across five linguacultures
allows a reconstruction of how the term spreads through Europe, and
across the Atlantic. The first occurrence occurs in France, already in the
1580s, while a second text from 1691 contains at least seven mentions of
the term. This is followed by occurrences in Dutch newspapers from
1725 to 1726. English (Burke) and Italian (Parini) have first occurrences
in the same year, 1757. The term emerges first in French, then in Dutch
and, subsequently, at the same time, in English and in Italian. However,
the data collected in 4.3 will alter the timeline. Both Parini and Burke use
the term as society etiquette; presumably there must be earlier occur-
rences in the meaning of court etiquette.
It has been noted that various early occurrences contain explicit links
to Spain. The first English source by Edmund Burke mentions etiquette
in a work called Spanish America. The first uses of the word etiquette in a
Dutch newspaper refer to Spanish court protocol. In French, the second
work to use étiquette as a social practice (and not as ‘label’) is a pseudo-
memoir of the Spanish court. All these early uses establish a link with
Spain and two sources explicitly mention Spanish court protocol. A
detailed study of the use of the word étiquette in the Duke of Saint-
Simon, the memoirist of the court of Versailles under Louis XIV, reveals
that the term étiquette is used only 3 times with reference to the French
court, next to 13 times to indicate the Spanish court (da Vinha 2011: 5).
Saint-Simon was appointed ambassador extraordinary to the Spanish
court. Interestingly, Saint-Simon uses étiquette for the French court
whenever he perceives a shortcoming, whilst Spanish etiquette is always

associated with rigour and tradition (da Vinha 2011: 6). For Saint-Simon,
Spanish court etiquette clearly is a model to be imitated (da Vinha
2011: 6).
Spanish etiquette rigour and compliance have a long aftermath.
Etiquette books mention Spanish etiquette, not with Saint-Simon’s admi-
rative stance, however. The following anecdote tells the history of a
Spanish queen who nearly dies during a riding accident because of eti-
quette rigour:
The Etiquette of the Court of Spain has undergone much modification

during the revolutionary movements in that country. At one time, nothing
could be more imperially rigid. So much so, that, to approach the sovereign
with a view to save his or her life, was an act of treason! On one occasion, a
horse ridden by a Queen of Spain having become so unruly that, in its furi-
ous curvettings, its royal mistress must have soon been dashed lifeless to the
earth – a courtier ran forward and seized the bridle and thus put a stop to
further danger. Alas! his gallantry was rewarded by his immediate execu-
tion! (The Book of Fashionable Life [1845]2: 67, original emphasis)
Below (in Sect. 4.3.3), this anecdote will return as the context for the first
ever occurrence of etiquette in English. In a French conduct book, events
take a more propitious (and patriotic) turn. The life of the queen is saved
by two French officers, whose life in turn is spared by the queen (Boitard
1851). However, according to Boitard, no such luck befalls a Spanish
king, who, ill, is sitting by a roaring fire. The king asks the courtiers to
remove some logs, but as the great Firelighter of the crown is absent,
nobody wants to run the risk of removing logs against etiquette rules. As
the courtiers entitled to move the king’s chair or touch the king’s body are
also absent, “il résulta que les courtisans laissèrent tranquillement rôtir le
roi, tout en se lamentant sur son triste sort” ‘the result was that the court-
iers happily allowed the king to roast, all the while lamenting his sad fate’
(Boitard 1851: 12). For Boitard, Spain is the country with the most
pedantic attitude towards court etiquette, “probablement parce qu'il n'y
a pas de nation où la noblesse soit plus orgueilleuse” ‘probably because
there is no nation where the nobility is prouder’ (Boitard 1851: 12).
164 A. Paternoster
The link with court protocol and Spain will be strengthened by lexi-
cography and etymology, which are at the centre of the next section.
4.3 ‘Etiquette’ in Dictionaries

I continue the vocabulary study into the mention of ‘etiquette’ with a
survey of dictionary definitions, examples and etymology, where I con-
front contemporary and historical dictionaries. Dictionaries will provide
important updates in respect of the timeline put forward in Sect. 4.2. In
fact, a new timeline will emerge: the corpora might still have certain limi-
tations and, in a few cases, dictionaries provide earlier examples. The dic-
tionaries will also indicate when the term starts acquiring the extended
meaning of society etiquette, that is, in private settings outside court.
Finally, they also provide the etymology of the lemmas.
Whilst in the previous section the order in which I presented the five
linguacultures under scrutiny was based on the language families, here,
like in Chap. 2, I revert to using a chronological order in order to mirror
the timeline of the borrowings and to achieve more clarity in showing
how the word ‘etiquette’ spreads from one language to another. The earli-
est occurrence is in French, and the term is followed as it spreads towards
other languages.
4.3.1 French Dictionaries
The Dictionnaire le Grand Robert de la langue française (https://grandrob-

ert.lerobert.com/, accessed 26.11.2021) and the Trésor de la Langue
Française (http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlfv3.htm, accessed 26.11.2021) are con-
temporary dictionaries. The Grand Robert divides the lemma étiquette in
two major meanings, which reflect the semantic development of the
word. The first group of meanings includes ‘stick’ or ‘pole’, and then, ‘a
piece of paper attached to a post or a sack’. These meanings are no longer
current. Instead, in 1580 étiquette acquires the still current meaning of
‘label’: “Petit morceau de papier, de carton, fixé à un objet (pour en
indiquer la nature, le contenu, le prix, la destination, le possesseur…)”

‘Small piece of paper, cardboard, attached to an object (to indicate its
nature, content, price, usage, owner…)’. ‘Label’ is also listed with a meta-
phorical meaning, to indicate someone’s ideological or political orienta-
tion. The second group of meanings includes ‘etiquette’: “Ordre des
préséances (marqué à l'origine par des étiquettes); cérémonial en usage
dans une cour, auprès d'un chef d'État, d'un grand personage” ‘Order of
precedence (originally marked by labels); ceremonial in use in a court,
with a head of state, an important person’. Rules for court protocol were
at first noted on pieces of paper, and this explains the link with the previ-
ous group of meanings (see also Terkourafi 2011: 174 in reference to
Aresty 1970). This new meaning of ‘protocol’ dates to 1607 and Le Grand
Robert notes it is widespread in 1691 (the year of d’Aulnoy’s memoir).
The last meaning added is “Formes cérémonieuses entre particuliers”
‘Ceremonial forms between individuals’ with the synonyms bienséance
and savoir-vivre. In a nutshell, the mainly metonymical development
goes from a stick, a paper note on a stick or a pile, a paper note, a set of
paper notes containing rules for court protocol, court protocol, society
etiquette. The etymology derives from the term estiquette ‘poteau de but’
‘goalpost’, a Picardian word from the ancient French estiquer ‘to attach,
fix” which survives in English ‘stich’, ‘stick’ and ‘ticket’ and in Dutch stok
‘stick’, stikken ‘to stich’ and steken ‘to put’.
The lemma in the Trésor de la langue française is very similar. It too
indicates (a) a passage from ‘label’ to ‘court protocol’: “P. réf. à une cou-
tume qui utilisait des étiquettes pour désigner un ordre de préséances”
‘Via the reference to the custom of using labels to designate an order of
precedence’; (b) the passage from court protocol to society etiquette. As a
first source for étiquette in the meaning of court protocol, the Trésor, as
seen in 4.2.4, quotes d’Aulnoy. The etymology largely coincides with the
one seen in the Grand Robert, but it crucially differs for étiquette in the
meaning of ‘court protocol’, where the Trésor specifies it is borrowed from
Spanish etiqueta, which is also da Vinha’s opinion (2011: 5).
Da Vinha lists the definitions of étiquette in three dictionaries dating
back to the age of Classicism under Louis XIV’s long reign: Richelet
(1680), Furetière (1690) and the Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise
(17624/1694). Richelet (1680: s.v.) only includes a judiciary meaning of
166 A. Paternoster
label, with prosecutors using labels to distinguish the bag with the files of
a given party. Furetière (1690: s.v.) too only lists the meaning of paper
document, mainly in a judiciary context (e.g. the document the bailiff
attaches to a house that has been seized by the Court). Seventy years later,
the Dictionnaire de l’Académie françoise of 1762 repeats the judiciary use,
before adding the meaning of court protocol as the last meaning of the
lemma (da Vinha 2011: 3):
On appelle, en parlant Du Cérémonial de la Cour d’Espagne, & des

quelques autres Cours, Étiquette du Palais, Le détail de ce qui se doit faire
journellement dans la Maison du Roi, & dans les principales cérémonies.
Cette prétention a été refusée à tel Prince, parce qu’elle n’étoit pas conforme à
l’étiquette du Palais. ‘We call, speaking of the Ceremonial of the Court of
Spain, and of various other Courts, Etiquette of the Palace, The detail of
what must be done daily in the King's Household, & in the main ceremo-
nies. This claim was refused to such Prince, because it did not conform to Palace
etiquette.’ (Dictionnaire de l’Académie françoise 17624/1694: s.v.)
Note the reference to the Spanish court. According to da Vinha (2011: 3)

in France a written protocol was first used in the fifteenth century at the
Burgundy Court of Philip the Good (see also Hours 2002).
In sum, present-day French dictionaries confirm that étiquette acquires
the meaning of court protocol in the 1690s, in reference to d’Aulnoy’s
memoirs of the Spanish court. However, it then takes 70 years before a
historical dictionary from 1762 includes the meaning of étiquette as court
protocol, but without mentioning society etiquette. All dictionaries men-
tion a metonymical relationship with paper documents, which is not
irrelevant: it is important that court etiquette is considered as a set of
rules, which are so stable, that it makes sense to write them down on
paper labels. No initial date is given for the extended meaning of society
etiquette, but this is the meaning used in the very first occurrence in
Pierre de L’Estoile.
4.3.2 Italian Dictionaries
The fifth edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (http://
www.lessicografia.it/, accessed 26.11.2021) is the first one to include
etichetta :
Propriamente vale Cerimoniale di Corte e della Nobiltà; ma per estensione

questo nome applicasi a tutte quelle minute cerimonie che si usano nel
conversare tra persone ragguardevoli. Dallo spagn. etiqueta. ‘In the proper
sense of the word, it means Ceremonial of the Court and Nobility, but by
extension this noun is used for all those minute ceremonies that are used in
the conversation of distinguished people. From Spanish etiqueta.’
(Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca 1863-1923: s.v.)
The term is seen both as court and society etiquette. Like French, Italian
derives etichetta from Spanish etiqueta. The Vocabolario quotes a first
example taken from the Lettere scientifiche ‘Scientific letters’ by Lorenzo
Magalotti, a philosopher, diplomat, poet, scientist, who was at the service
of the Grand duke Cosimo III de’ Medici. He died in 1712 and his
Lettere scientifiche were published posthumously in 1721.
[...] al mio ritorno in Italia cominciai a dire ancor io in italiàno etichetta; nè

io solo, ma le mie camerate ancora, credo, per parer, come fanno i giovani,
d’aver portato qualche cosa di Spagna. Ne tornò il marchese da
Castiglione; … ne sono tornati dopo degli altri: etichetta quegli, etichetta
quell’altro, può esser che si sia fatto male a profanar la lingua Toscana con
questo spagnuolismo di più; il fatto però si è, che in oggi io sento dire
etichetta anche a di quelli che non sono stati a Madrid. ‘On my return to
Italy I too began to say in Italian etichetta; nor I alone, but my companions
as well, I believe, to show that, as young people do, they had brought back
something from Spain. The Marquis of Castiglione returned; ... others
returned afterwards: etichetta here, etichetta there, it may be that it was an
error to desecrate the Tuscan language with yet another Spanish word; the
fact is, however, that today I hear etichetta even in those who have not been
to Madrid.’ (Magalotti 1721: 238)
168 A. Paternoster
For Magalotti, etichetta is a spagnuolismo, a Spanish loanword. With

Magalotti, the first occurrence of etichetta in Italian with the meaning of
court etiquette predates by at least 40 years the 1757 one found in
Giuseppe Parini (in Sect. 4.2.5), who uses it to refer to society etiquette.
The historian Tasca quotes Parini when stating that in Italian etichetta
makes the shift from court etiquette to society etiquette in the second
half of the eighteenth century (2004: 133-134).
The Grande dizionario della lingua italiana (http://www.gdli.it/,
accessed 26.11.2021) is the result of 40 years of research, from 1961 to
2002, under the direction, first, of the philologist Salvatore Battaglia and,
later, the literary critic Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti. This monumental work
contains a total of 22,700 pages, distributed over 21 volumes, containing
14,000 quotes from 6000 authors (see https://accademiadellacrusca.it/it/
contenuti/l-a ccademia-d ella-c rusca-p ubblica-o n-l ine-i l-g rande-
dizionario-della-lingua-italiana-fondato-da-salv/6216, accessed 26.11.2021).
The first meaning listed for etichetta is court protocol, with the Magalotti
example. Interestingly, the GDLI is the only dictionary that I have con-
sulted to include a definition linked to religious ceremonial: “ll comp-
lesso delle costumanze che stabiliscono il comportamento dei fedeli verso
le personalità della Chiesa (bacio dell’anello, abiti scuri, ecc.) e regolano
il cerimoniale della Corte papale.” ‘The complex of customs that establish
the behaviour of the faithful towards the personalities of the Church (kiss
of the ring, dark clothes, etc.) and regulate the ceremonial of the Papal
Court’. The extended meaning, of society etiquette, refers to an example
taken from Ludovico Antonio Muratori’s La filosofia morale, with a first
edition of 1735:
Molto meno oserei io metter bocca nell’etichetta de’ Principi e de i gran

signori, verso i quali è di dovere che negli atti esterni comparisca quella
differenza che passa fra loro e chi è da meno di loro. ‘Much less would I
dare to have a say on the etiquette of the Princes and the great peers,
towards whom it is necessary that the difference between them and those
who are less than them appears in external acts.’ (Muratori 1735: 440)
Etichetta relates to precedence, but it is slightly unclear whether it relates

to court or society etiquette. Another occurrence in the same work has a
more generic meaning:
Almeno qui non v’è sostengo, né parole misurate col compasso dell’Etichetta.
‘At least here there is no assistance, no words measured with the etiquette
compass.’ Muratori 1735: 426)
The Muratori use of etichetta outside the realm of court protocol predates
the Parini example by 20 years.
Importantly, the Magalotti example, which is anterior to 1712, alters
the account of how the term spreads via borrowings. In Sect. 4.2 the
timeline of first usages in historical corpora suggested the term emerges
first in French, then in Dutch and subsequently, at the same time, in
English and in Italian. The new timeline is as follows: Spanish etiqueta
gives French étiquette, but also Italian etichetta before 1712.
4.3.3 Dutch Dictionaries
Although the examples seen in 4.2.3 place Dutch first occurrences of

etiquette in the 1720s, the dictionaries only offer first occurrences from
the second half of the eighteenth century.
Het Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal (‘Dutch Language Institute’,
INT, https://ivdnt.org/, accessed 4.1.2022) provides online access to four
dictionaries, resp. for Old Dutch (500-1200), Early Middle Dutch
(1200-1300), Middle Dutch (1250-1550) and Dutch (Woordenboek der
Nederlandse Taal ‘Dictionary of the Dutch Language’ or WNT,
1500-1976). Etiquette only appears in the WNT (https://ivdnt.org/woor-
denboeken/woordenboek-der-nederlandsche-taal/, accessed 4.1.2022)
and in none of the dictionaries covering earlier language stages. The WNT
describes the meaning and history of hundreds of thousands of words
from written Dutch from 1500 to 1976. It contains approximately 95,000
main keywords and approximately 1,700,000 quotations. Since 1851, five
generations of editors have worked on the WNT. When it was completed
170 A. Paternoster
in 1998, it consisted of no less than 40 volumes. Its online version is still

under construction.
The WNT lemma etiquette dates from 1917. It lists three meanings for
etiquette: Firstly, etiquette appears as the by then already old-fashioned
spelling for etiket ‘label’, with examples all dating to the nineteenth cen-
tury. In the second meaning, etiquette means court protocol: “Geheel van
gebruiken met betrekking tot de rechten en verplichtingen van hovelin-
gen overeenkomstig hun rang.” ‘Set of customs pertaining to the rights
and obligations of courtiers according to their rank.’ Two nineteenth-
century examples are provided. Finally, etiquette can be found outside
court: “Geheel van regels met betrekking tot den maatschappelijken
omgang in meer deftige kringen.” ‘Set of rules with regard to social inter-
course in higher social circles’, with an example from 1793 (WNT, s.v.).
An etymological dictionary provides earlier examples. Philippa et al.
(2003-2009: s. v.) link Dutch etiquette to French and, in particular, to the
etiquette of the Burgundy court of Philip the Good (as mentioned in
Sect. 4.3.1). They quote a 1764 first occurrence in the meaning of society
etiquette found in a weekly publication De Denker, which, actually, con-
tains two examples in this meaning. The one which Philippa et al. retrieve
from the WNT is about letter writing, but there is a second (ironic) one
admiring the Parisian lifestyle of a lady from Amsterdam:
Dit bleek my noch onlangs in een lofspraak, welke ik van Mevrouw *** en
haare wyze van leeven hoorde geeven. “'t Is 'er alles opzyn Fransch, zeide
men, kleeding, meubilen, Etiquette vertoonen eer eene Parisienne, dan
Amsterdamsche Dame. [...]” ‘This appeared to me recently in a eulogy which
I heard about Mrs. *** and her way of life. "Everything is done the French
way," they said, dress, furniture, Etiquette show more of a Parisian than an
Amsterdam lady. [...]”’ (van Engelen 1764: 7-8; retrieved from https://
www.dbnl.org/tekst/_den001denk02_01/_den001denk02_01_0001.php,
accessed 17.2.2022)
This example is the second one identified in Fig. 4.5 after Knoop 1758.
Philippa et al.’s (2003-2009: s. v.) example for court etiquette dates from
1782 (see https://www.etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/etiquette, accessed
26.11.2021), but Delpher.nl contained the much earlier examples of 1725
and 1726. Note that both examples from the 1720s refer to Spanish court
protocol and borrow ‘etiquette’ from Spanish. Up until this point, French,
Italian and Dutch have early occurrences which all place etiquette in a
Spanish context of court protocol. This pattern will now be confirmed by
English.
4.3.4 English Dictionaries
The first English dictionary entry for etiquette dates to John Walker’s A
critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language (1791)
in the meaning of “the polite form or manner of doing any thing; the
ceremonial of good manners” (Walker 1791: s.v.; see also Curtin 1981: 5;
Young 2003: 127). Walker makes no reference to court protocol and nei-
ther does James Barclay's A complete and universal English dictionary
(17992; the first edition, 1792, does not include the lemma) where eti-
quette is defined as follows:
Etiquette. a French word, primarily denoting a ticket or title affixed to a

bag or bundle of papers, expressing its contents. At present it is used to
denote those forms that regulate the decorum of conduct towards persons
of various ranks and stations in life (Barclay 17992: s.v.)
At the end of the eighteenth century, the term is mainly understood as

society etiquette. In the US, Noah Webster’s (1828) American Dictionary
of the English Language lists the spelling variant ‘etiquet’:
Primarily, an account of ceremonies. Hence in present usage, forms of cer-

emony or decorum; the forms which are observed towards particular per-
sons, or in particular places, especially in courts, levees, and on public
occasions. From the original sense of the word, it may be inferred that it
was formerly the custom to deliver cards containing orders for regulating
ceremonies on public occasions. (http://webstersdictionary1828.com/,
s.v., accessed 15.2.2022)
172 A. Paternoster
Court protocol is cited as a particular meaning next to a more generic

meaning of society etiquette.
The Oxford English Dictionary (https://www.oed.com/, accessed
26.11.2021) considers ‘etiquette’ a borrowing from French. The first
meaning listed is the “system of ceremony prescribed by a court; (also) the
customary formalities required in diplomatic relations; protocol”. The first
example comes from The London magazine; or, Gentleman's monthly intel-
ligence: “All the Court were Spectators of this Accident, but no body
succour'd her; the Etiquette formally oppos'd it.” (Jan 38/1). On closer
inspection, this is an account of the Spanish queen’s equestrian accident
discussed in Sect. 4.2.6. The article is called ‘Of the Spanish Etiquette, or
Ceremonial of the Palace, &c.’ (The London Magazine, and Monthly
Chronologer 1737: 37-38, retrieved from https://books.google.co.uk/book
s?id=WwcoAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s, accessed 17.2.2022).
Besides the occurrence in the title, the term occurs four times in the body
of the article, each time in reference to Spanish court etiquette. It also
appears in the alphabetical index, where it is explained as “Ceremonial of
the Palace in Spain”. As a result, in its first known occurrences, the term
etiquette is a borrowing from Spanish. This brings these early borrowings
in line with French, Italian and Dutch. The year 1737 anticipates the year
of the first English occurrence (as seen in Sect. 4.2.2) by two decades and
it is now closer to the first Dutch occurrences of 1725–1726.
This example of court etiquette is followed by two quotations taken
from Chesterfield’s Letters to his son, resp. from 1750, 19th of March and
1763, 14th of July. The first reads “Without hesitation kiss his [sc. the
Pope's] slipper, or whatever else the étiquette of that Court requires”
(Chesterfield Let. 19 Mar. (1932) (modernized text) IV. 1515); the sec-
ond “Over head and ears engaged in ceremony and étiquette.” (Chesterfield
Let. 14 July (1932) (modernized text) VI. 2508). The earliest examples
listed by the Oxford English Dictionary to document the emergence of the
extended meaning of society etiquette, that is, “the customary code of
polite behaviour in society; good manners” are, firstly, the 1757 one by
Edmund Burke retrieved via ECCO in Sect. 4.2.2 and, secondly, the
1768 one by Laurence Sterne, retrieved via CLMET and Evans Early
American Imprint Collection in Sect. 4.2.1 and Sect. 4.2.2. Compared
with the results retrieved earlier, the Oxford English Dictionary provides a
crucial contribution to the semantic development of the term ‘etiquette’
in English. Not only has the Oxford English Dictionary provided three
examples that carry an earlier date, all three refer to court etiquette and
the first one to the Spanish court. In sum, etiquette emerges in English in
the second quarter of the eighteenth century as court protocol and
becomes society etiquette in the third quarter of the eighteenth century.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists three more meanings, which show
a gradual transition to a less formal behavioural code: from the “order of
procedure established by custom in the armed forces (esp. with reference
to promotion and hierarchy), or in a legislative body, etc.” to an “unwrit-
ten code of conduct followed by members of certain professions, esp.
medicine and law” and finally to the “customary behaviour of members
of a particular social or professional group, sports team, etc., towards each
other”. The gradation goes from an order of procedure, presumably writ-
ten, to an unwritten code of conduct, to customary behaviour.
4.3.5 Conclusion
The vocabulary study into the mention of etiquette continued with a

survey of dictionary examples, definitions and etymology. Some diction-
aries, indeed, provided earlier first occurrences. This shows that both dic-
tionaries and large corpora can be useful to study the diachrony of a given
term as corpora, however large, may still have certain limitations due to
genre balance. The dictionary example of Magalotti anticipates the date
of the first occurrence in Italian to the very beginning of the eighteenth
century, which means it is now placed before first occurrences in Dutch,
from the 1720s. Given that Magalotti’s example has a terminus ad quem
of 1712 (the year of his demise), the very first occurrences are in French,
then in Italian, soon after in Dutch and in English, within a time span
going from the end of the sixteenth century to 1737. Indeed, not only do
the three first occurrences listed by the Oxford English Dictionary carry an
earlier date than the one seen in Sect. 4.2.2, they also refer all three to
court etiquette, with the first occurrence reporting on the equestrian acci-
dent of the Spanish queen in a text containing no less than six
174 A. Paternoster
occurrences. The Magalotti example found in the Vocabolario degli

Accademici della Crusca and in the GDLI is a similar case: not only is it
earlier than the one provided by MIDIA, it also refers to Spanish court
etiquette. This made me rethink the etymology. French and Italian dic-
tionaries derive étiquette and etichetta from Spanish. For English and
Dutch, the Oxford English Dictionary and Philippa et al. list a French
etymology. However, for English, the six first occurrences are consistently
describing a Spanish context; therefore, I consider it a Spanish loanword.
For Dutch, the same observation is true: the two first occurrences describe
a Spanish context. As a result, the four languages under study now derive
‘etiquette’ from Spanish.
Overall, this section significantly strengthens the link between eti-
quette, Spain and the courtly environment. The dictionaries also provide
information (albeit somewhat patchier) as to when the terms start acquir-
ing the extended meaning of society etiquette, that is, within private set-
tings outside court. Dutch and English dictionaries pinpoint this change
towards the middle of the eighteenth century, 1750s–1760s. For Italian,
historian and philosopher Muratori uses etichetta for the first time in the
extended meaning in 1735. Whilst the dictionaries show a semantic
development whereby court etiquette spreads to etiquette in society, this
tendency is contradicted by French where the first étiquette occurrence, in
a 1587 memoire, already has the extended meaning, preceding the first
occurrence of étiquette as court protocol in 1691. In regard to French, it
is not unlikely that there are even earlier occurrences waiting to be discov-
ered. Philippa et al. formulate a tantalizing hypothesis by which etiquette
originates in the fifteenth-century Burgundy court of Philip the
Good, who goes to Vienna with his daughter Mary of Burgundy, then to
Madrid and then back to France (2003-2009: s. v., retrieved from https://
www.etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/etiquette, accessed 17.2.2022). The
Diccionairo de la lengua española suggests etiqueta has a French etymol-
ogy, étiquette (https://dle.rae.es/etiqueta?m=form, accessed 20.2.2022).
Seventeenth-century Spain and France had particularly centralized
courts, which might explain that their court protocol was firmly estab-
lished, even to the point of enjoying exemplary status. Later, in Louis
XV’s France the power of the aristocracy is being curtailed at court (Hours
2002) and aristocratic social life is moving from Versailles to private
salons in Paris, often hosted by influential women (Craveri 2005). A sim-

ilar move is observed in Britain:
During the course of the eighteenth century the court declined in impor-
tance as a venue for social interaction and political intrigue among English
aristocrats. It gradually was replaced by the larger and more female-
dominated coterie known as London's fashionable 'Society'. [...] London's
fledgling 'Society' fashioned courtly etiquettes and values to suit the private
drawing-room which was becoming the primary locus of sociability among
the fashionable set. (Morgan 1994: 88-9; see also Arditi 1994).
That etiquette, formerly understood as court protocol, acquires the

extended meaning of society etiquette results from the socio-cultural
transition whereby the nobility increasingly abandons court life and starts
conducting its social life in a non-institutional setting. It is this type of
etiquette outside court that will be codified in etiquette books.
4.4 Court Etiquette

That society etiquette is rooted in court protocol has enduring conse-
quences, as it will inherit the same rigour typical of court protocol, where
rules are fixed to the point that it makes sense to write them down on
pieces of paper. Nineteenth-century etiquette books conserve a strong
awareness of a continued link with court protocol. This last section of
Chap. 4 explores the presence of court etiquette in the nineteenth-century
sources.
This French conduct book discusses etiquette as comprising two parts,
court etiquette and society etiquette:
Il y a deux sortes d'étiquette, savoir l’étiquette de la bonne compagnie, et

l'étiquette de cour.
L'étiquette de la bonne compagnie a été inventée dans un seul but, celui
d'opérer sans secousses, sans tiraillements, le triage de la société, et au
moyen de l'étiquette ce triage se fait tout seul. […]
Quant à l'étiquette du grand monde, ou de cour, c'est une autre chose;
elle a été inventée pour maintenir la hiérarchie et surtout la dignité des
176 A. Paternoster
rangs. ‘There are two kinds of etiquette, namely the etiquette of good soci-
ety, and court etiquette. The etiquette of good society was invented for a
single purpose, that of operating without jolts, without tensions, the selec-
tion of company, and by means of etiquette this selection happens by itself.
[…] As for the etiquette of high society, or of the court, that is another
thing; it was invented to maintain the hierarchy and especially the dignity
of rank’ (Boitard 1851: 10; for a similar distinction see Lambert, Mme
[1870?]: 1-2)
How do etiquette books present the birth of etiquette? A rather amus-

ing, narrative appears in Emily Post’s Etiquette in Society, in Business, in
Politics, and at Home (19239/1922). The Introduction, written by Post’s
editor Richard Duffy at Funk and Wagnalls, New York, includes this
account on the transition from the meaning of ‘label’ to ‘court protocol’,
with starring roles for Louis XIV and his Scottish gardener, determined
to keep the Versailles courtiers off the lawn:
To the French we owe the word etiquette, and it is amusing to discover its
origin in the commonplace familiar warning – “keep off the grass”. It hap-
pened in the reign of Louis XIV, when the gardens of Versailles were being
laid out, that the master gardener, an old Scotsman, was sorely tried because
his newly seeded lawns were being continually trampled upon. To keep
trespassers off, he put up warning signs or tickets – etiquettes – on which
was indicated the path along which to pass. But the courtiers paid no atten-
tion to these directions and so the determined Scot complained to the King
in such convincing manner that His Majesty issued an edict commanding
everyone at Court to “keep within the etiquettes”. Gradually the term came
to cover all the rules for correct demeanor and deportment in courts circles;
[…]. (Duffy 19239/1922: xi-xii)
One of the reasons court etiquette expanded significantly under Louis

XIV was the centralisation of royal power in Versailles, the place towards
which all courtiers gravitated. At the outset of his reign Louis XIV had to
confront a Fronde, a significant aristocratic front, which was opposed to
his rule. Although he succeeded in gaining absolute power, he always
remained aware of the need to squash extant feudal opposition to his
push for centralisation. With this risk in mind, the king used the palace
of Versailles and its etiquette to control the French nobility. The aristo-
crats were compelled to live in Versailles and to submit to its etiquette. In
Die höfische Gesellschaft ‘The Court Society’ Norbert Elias (2006/1933)
explains, mainly by using Saint-Simon’s memoirs, how the French king
used minute differences in outward treatment of his courtiers (e.g. levels
of access to the suite of appartements that lead to his most private rooms)
to keep tight control over them. Any alteration of someone’s place in the
outward hierarchy or precedence was keenly felt as a public promotion or
demotion of one’s prestige and influence. One nineteenth-century French
source incorporates a detailed account of the King’s daily schedule called
Une journée de Louis XIV, ‘a day in the life of Louis XIV’, from le petit
lever to le petit coucher, the public getting-up and going-to-bed ceremo-
nies to which only the most distinguished courtiers had the honour to
assist. Mme J.-J. Lambert, pseudonym of Jules Rostaign, defends this
endless succession of purely symbolic, minute gestures as “une idée poli-
tique profonde, un instrument de règne puissant” ‘a profound political
idea, a powerful instrument to reign’ (Lambert, Mme [1870?]: 12):
En effet, c’est grâce à l’étiquette, à cette vaste hiérarchie des rangs, de présé-
ances, de fonctions [...], que Louis XIV tint en haleine toutes les ambitions,
toutes les convoitises, qu’il arriva à avoir toute sa noblesse dans les mains,
et par sa noblesse, le royaume, si bien qu’un jour il a pu dire:
“L’État, c’est moi!” ‘Indeed, it is thanks to etiquette, to this vast hierarchy
of ranks, precedencies and functions [...], that Louis XIV held in suspense
all the ambitions, all the scheming, that he managed to have the entire
nobility in his hands, and by his nobility, the kingdom, so that one day he
was able to say: “L'État, c'est moi!” [I am the State]’ (Lambert, Mme
[1870?]: 12)
When Napoleon is crowned Emperor of the French in 1804, the new

imperial household is in dire need of a protocol and ex-Bourbon court-
iers, like Mme de Genlis, are hastily drafted in to write the Étiquette du
Palais imperial (1852/1806; see Rouvillois 20082: 61). While Louis XIV
used etiquette to subjugate a potentially rebellious nobility, Napoleon
copied the Bourbon etiquette in the hope of acquiring legitimacy for his
reign. However, many found his taste for trivial rules rather ridiculous
178 A. Paternoster
(Selin 2018). The 159-page document “listed all the officers of the crown
(Grand Almoner, Grand Marshal of the Palace, Grand Chamberlain,
etc.), set out their duties, specified who was allowed to enter which rooms
in the palace and in what manner, and gave instructions for the smooth
running of religious functions, meals, balls, concerts, parades, ceremo-
nies, imperial travel, court mourning, and other things” (Selin 2018).
The different circumstances of court life to which the protocol applies
bears a very close resemblance with the different topics discussed in eti-
quette books: church attendance, dinner, day and evening receptions,
concerts, balls, travelling, mourning (see Chap. 5). Another point of
resemblance is the level of detail characterising the rules. Selin (2018)
summarises the rules regarding dining etiquette:
[…] when their Majesties dined in public, the Grand Chamberlain held a
finger-bowl for the Emperor to wash his hands in; the Grand Equerry
offered him his armchair; the Grand Marshal of the Palace presented him
with his napkin. The First Prefect, the First Equerry and the First
Chamberlain performed the same functions for the Empress. The Grand
Almoner went to the front of the table, blessed the meal, and then retired.
During the meal, the Colonel-General in waiting stood behind the
Emperor’s armchair; the Grand Chamberlain stood on the Colonel-
General’s right; the Grand Equerry on his left. Carafes of water and wine
were placed on a golden platter, the glass on another platter, to the right of
the place setting. When the Emperor wanted to drink, the First Prefect
poured out the wine and water and handed the glass to the Grand Marshal,
who transmitted it to his Majesty. When the Empress desired a drink, the
First Equerry mixed and the Second Prefect handed over the glass. (Selin
2018, based on Étiquette du Palais Impérial 1852/1806: 110-111)2
Firstly, there is a meticulous time schedule: the scene unfolds as a care-

fully timed succession of tiny steps. Secondly, at every moment in time,
every participant in the scene knows exactly where to stand: the scene is
carefully laid out from a spatial point of view. Future etiquette books will
incorporate this aspect in their choreographic treatment of recurring
2
Selin adopts the past tense, but the original is written in the present and consists of an itemised
list of rules.
circumstances (see Chap. 5). In the chapters dedicated to court ceremo-

nies, the Grand maître des cérémonies ‘Grand Chamberlain’ functions like
a choreographer: his role is to explain “à chacun ce qu'il doit faire, et la
place qu'il doit occuper dans la cérémonie” ‘to everyone what to do, and
the place he must occupy in the ceremony’ (Étiquette du Palais Impérial
1852/1806: 63). He makes use of dedicated drawings of the scene and
the ceremonies are rehearsed before they are performed:
Le grand Maître fait faire par le dessinateur des cérémonies, les dessins
nécessaires aux grandes cérémonies, et les présente à S. M. II indique des
répétitions, et y fait apprendre les marches, évolutions et positions, par le
répétiteur des cérémonies. […] Le jour de la cérémonie, le grand Maître
fait exécuter ponctuellement toutes les parties du cérémonial. ‘The Grand
Chamberlain has the designer of the ceremonies make the drawings neces-
sary for the great ceremonies, and presents them to His Majesty. He sched-
ules the rehearsals, and makes sure that the répétiteur of the ceremonies
teaches the steps, movements and positions. […] On the day of the cere-
mony, the Grand Chamberlain makes sure that all the parts of the cere-
mony are performed punctually.’ (Étiquette du Palais Impérial
1852/1806: 64)
An important aspect of imperial etiquette regards precedence. During

ceremonies, members of the imperial family and the courtiers are ordered
according to rank. When mass is celebrated in the Imperial Chapel, for
example, rank determines not only the seating arrangements, but also the
procession of the imperial household to the Chapel. Mass is preceded by
“la marche du cortège impérial pour se rendre à la chapelle” ‘the march of
the imperial procession to reach the chapel’ (Étiquette du Palais Impérial
1852/1806: 101). After the empress has entered with her own proces-
sion, the emperor enters, preceded by 14 different ranks, going from low-
est (his pages) to the highest (the Grand Chamberlain). The churchgoers
then sit down according to a detailed seating plan. Emperor and Empress
sit at the centre, and rank diminishes gradually when moving away from
the centre:
L'Empereur et l'Impératrice sont au centre; à la gauche de l'Impératrice, les

Princesses; à droite de l'Empereur, sont les Princes de la Famille impériale
180 A. Paternoster
et de l'Empire. Derrière l'Empereur, est le Colonel général de service, ayant

à sa droite le grand Aumônier, et à sa gauche le grand Chambellan. Le
grand Aumônier a un pliant. ‘The Emperor and Empress are at the centre;
to the left of the Empress, the Princesses; to the right of the Emperor are
the Princes of the Imperial Family and of the Empire. Behind the Emperor
is the Colonel-General on duty, having the Grand Almoner on his right,
and the Grand Chamberlain on his left. The Grand Almoner has a folding
chair.’ (Étiquette du Palais impérial 1852/1806: 103)
These well-regulated processions and seating arrangements will survive

into society etiquette where they form a staple of dinner arrangements (see
Chap. 7 on precedence, which will discuss chair precedence, seen here in
the detail that the Grand Almoner only has a folding chair). The impor-
tance of court protocol for Napoleon also transpires from Frantext: one of
the memorialists causing the frequency of étiquette to peak in the years
after the Revolution (see 4.2.4) is Count Emmanuel-August-Dieudonné
de Las Cases, who accompanies Napoleon into exile to Saint Helena to
pen down the memoirs dictated by the ex-Emperor: Le Mémorial de
Sainte-Hélène (1823), ‘Memorial of Saint Helena’, in eight volumes.
After the Restauration, the French political landscape alternates
between royal, imperial and republican governments until 1870, the start
of the Third Republic. Even under the Third Republic, the seventh edi-
tion of De la politesse et du bon ton by Comtesse Drohojowska still con-
tains a chapter À la cour, at Court, where “règles, connues sous le nom
étiquette, sont formulées dans un code spécial nommé cérémonial” ‘rules,
known as etiquette, are formulated in a special code named ceremonial’
(Drohojowska, Comtesse de 18787: 83). The chapter contains advice
about court dress, it details successive steps to be followed during a court
reception and lists titles of address for various members of the royal
household and ministers. However, the advice is part of a quote taken
from a work by Agathe-Pauline Caylac de Ceylan, Comtesse de Bradi,
who writes several educational works, amongst which a conduct book Du
savoir-vivre en France au dix-neuvième siècle ou Instructions d'un père à ses
enfants ‘On Politeness in France in the Nineteenth Century or Instructions
from a Father to his Children’ (Bradi 1838) published during the July
Monarchy. Comtesse Drohojowska’s chapter does not pretend to
dispense current advice and is, rather, a nostalgic reminiscence of bygone

times. The Chapter Présentations officielles ‘official presentations’ by la
Baronne de Fresne insists—three times in a mere three pages—that the
court is the place where etiquette laws need adhering to “religieusement”,
“bien”, “scrupuleusement”, ‘religiously’, ‘closely’, ‘scrupulously’ (Fresne,
Baronne de 18707: 73-75). When the commercial success of French eti-
quette books is at its peak, France is a republic: later sources mainly give
readers indications on how to correspond with their President to petition
a favour (e.g. Pompeillan, La Marquise de 1898).
Clearly, being published in a republic does not stop etiquette books
from considering court etiquette. American sources discuss “official soci-
ety in Washington City”, which is “governed by a code of fixed laws”:
“The social observances of the White House are prescribed with great
exactness, and constitute the Court Etiquette of the Republic” (Cooke
1899/1896: 374-377; see also Chapter 33 on Washington Etiquette in
Houghton et al. 18837/1882: 353-357). Nevertheless, the natural envi-
ronment for court etiquette is a monarchy, most of which are of the con-
stitutional type towards the second half of the nineteenth century. The
Italian corpus only includes ten sources, but half of them dedicate some
space to court protocol (Bergando, il conte 1882/1881; Mantea 1897;
Vertua Gentile 1897; Pigorini Beri 19082/1893; Gibus del Mattino
1900). Mantea explains why: “La nostra corte, democratica e gentile per
eccellenza, ha semplificato il cerimoniale delle presentazioni.” ‘Our court,
democratic and kind par excellence, has simplified the ceremonial of pre-
sentations.’ (Mantea 1897: 220). Because the court has become more
democratic, a larger portion of the population can now expect to be
introduced at court, hence the continued presence of court etiquette in
numerous sources. Dutch Louise Stratenus (1887: 88-97) includes a
chapter Aan het hof ‘At court’, which delivers an elaborate script for the
court presentation of a young woman. Van der Mandele (M., v. d. [19108]/
[1893]: 174-180) justifies the presence of a similar chapter with the argu-
ment that every middle-class woman can apply to be presented at court.
In the United Kingdom, chapters dedicated to presentations at court are
found in a number of sources, here too because invitation cards to court
presentations were widely granted. Besides the aristocracy, can be pre-
sented the “wives and daughters of the clergy, of military and naval
182 A. Paternoster
officers, of physicians and barristers” and bankers (The Habits of Good

Society [1859]: 375), provided “their conduct is sans reproche” ([Cheadle]
[1872]: 201). The publication dates of the other UK sources that include
a chapter on court presentations show that the interest in court etiquette
is constant: Trusler 1804; N. Y. E. 1844; The Book of Fashionable Life
[1845]2; Court Etiquette [1849]; The Hand-Book of Etiquette 1860;
Modern Etiquette in Public and Private 1887/[1871]. Although court eti-
quette is the oldest form of etiquette, in the nineteenth century it is alive
and kicking as a fixed topic of etiquette books, thanks to the advances of
political liberalism, paradoxically. Matilde Serao only adds the chapter
Nelle case del Re. Prammatica di corte ‘In the houses of the King. Court
protocol’ in the 1923 edition of Saper vivere (1900): instead of being
considered old-fashioned and elitist, the topic reflects democratic change.
Although court etiquette becomes ever more democratic in terms of
who is admitted, its form remains as detailed and complicated as seen for
Napoleon’s Étiquette (1852/1806). The reason why these chapters are so
detailed is that they are directed at non-aristocrats, who need to be
informed of every tiny step. Just one example will suffice to demonstrate
the script-like nature of these chapters. The rules detail the different steps
involved in kissing the Queen’s hand:
Assuming that the visitor at a Levee has had his name &c. announced to the
Queen, and has reached Her Majesty, he must kneel down on his left knee,
raise his right arm, with the ungloved back of his hand uppermost, on which
he receives the palm of Her Majesty's right hand; then he barely touches
with his lips the back of that royal hand, which is ungloved. If he wishes to
be particularly absurd and vulgar, he will kiss the hand with a loud smack,
and if he be very bashful or alarmed, he will merely bow down to the hand,
without the courage to touch it with his lips. (Court Etiquette [1849]: 25,
original emphasis, and similar in The Book of Fashionable Life [1845]: 47)
Chapter 5 will discuss complicatedness in etiquette and Chapter 6 will

zoom in on the fear of blundering thus generated.
A last point to raise in this section on the origin of etiquette is the
historical link between court protocol and diplomatic protocol. Before
the function of ambassador acquired a distinct professional profile,
ambassadors were courtiers who happened to be sent abroad to construct
or maintain relationships with other Sovereigns. Baldassare Castiglione,

author of the Book of the courtier (1528), ended his career as a top diplo-
mate, that is, papal nuncio to Emperor Charles V. Twenty years earlier he
had been sent on a mission to Henry VII to collect the insignia of the
Order of the Garter for the ruler of Urbino, Duke Guidobaldo Da
Montefeltro. Efforts to delimit a specific professional role for the ambas-
sador emerge in the second half of the sixteenth century (Fedele 2017).
In 1582, for example, Torquato Tasso, author of Jerusalem Delivered and
courtier at the Este court in Ferrara, writes a dialogue in which he defines
the figure of the Messaggiero or ‘Messenger’, in other words, the
Ambassador. In Napoleon’s Étiquette du palais impérial of 1808—con-
taining double the amount of pages in respect of the 1806 version—Titre
XIII contains the elaborate protocol to be followed during the reception
of newly appointed ambassadors and their spouses: Cérémonial pour la
réception des Ambassadeurs, des Ambassadrices et Ministres étrangers. The
14-page long chapter (1808: 289-302) covers several days during which
letters and visits are exchanged. Just like society etiquette, diplomatic
protocol originates in court protocol and then splits off from it. Because
of this common origin, it continues to share with society etiquette a set
of highly compulsory rules, especially as regards precedence. Today, dip-
lomatic protocol can be consulted in written diplomatic rule-books, such
as the Dutch Protocol Guide for Diplomatic Missions en [sic] Consular Posts
(https://www.government.nl/documents/leaflets/2015/04/15/protocol-
guide-for-diplomatic-missions-en-consular-posts, accessed 22.12.2021,
see also recent work by Danziger and Kampf 2020; Heimann and Kampf
2021 on the interface between politeness, flattery, gifting and diplomacy).
Given that society etiquette and diplomatic protocol both originate in
court protocol, it is no surprise that nineteenth-century etiquette books
still contain chapters dedicated to diplomatic protocol. Anonymous
Court Etiquette includes instructions on diplomatic correspondence
([1849]: 145-149), whilst the Book of Fashionable Life dedicates a para-
graph to the Reception of Foreign Ministers ([1845]2: 62-64). In the US
sources the topic of diplomatic etiquette is discussed in Moore (18782:
175) and in Houghton et al. (18837/1882: 353), but mainly sources dis-
cuss dining precedence for ambassadors and their spouses, as in [Klein]
(1899: 111-112), or the use of correct titles for ambassadors in letter
writing (Cooke 1899/1896: 450).
184 A. Paternoster
4.5 Conclusion
This chapter has left the specific domain of etiquette books to continue
the vocabulary study of the term ‘etiquette’ using large diachronic cor-
pora and dictionaries, both contemporary and historical. This allowed to
look further back in time, with one French example dating back to the
end of the sixteenth century. After the diachronic corpora showed that
etiquette was emerging in contexts referring to court protocol and Spain,
this link was strengthened by dictionary examples, definitions and ety-
mology: when etiquette is first used to identify a social practice, it indi-
cates Spanish court protocol. Given this link, the chapter looked at an
early nineteenth-century example of court protocol—the Étiquette writ-
ten for Napoleon’s newly founded imperial household—to highlight
some of its defining formal aspects, which continue into society etiquette:
not only do the various items covered by court protocol provide a first
glimpse into how society etiquette is organised around different circum-
stances, the rules also display a similar level of detail concerning the use
of time and space, which makes them script-like and similar to choreog-
raphies. They also show rank as another organisational principle for the
use of space, with regard to processions and seating arrangements.
My working definition of nineteenth-century etiquette now requires
adapting, in order to reflect its court origin and its subsequent move into
private settings. New elements are given in italics:

young adults and the upwardly mobile are supposed to have acquired previ-
ously. Originating in court protocol, etiquette expresses close adherence to
social hierarchy and is organised in terms of recurring social (i.e., private and
institutional) circumstances such as visits, dinners, balls, court presentations.
The next chapter will develop the normative and the choreographic
nature of etiquette: its tendency to deliver minute, extremely detailed,
but highly compulsory rules for outward behaviour.
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http://lab.kb.nl/tool/dbnl-ngram-viewer.
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LREC2006_DiaCORIS.pdf
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London: Sage.
5
Scripts and Lines
5.1 Introduction
The chapter is dedicated to the way in which etiquette books organise the
prescriptive discourse and go about dictating norms. It specifically inves-
tigates the compulsory aspect of etiquette, which has been put forward as
one of the main defining traits of etiquette. The final section of Chap. 4
has highlighted the script-like nature of court etiquette and the enduring
presence of chapters on court audiences in nineteenth-century sources.
Here I argue that the script-like character of court etiquette extends to
society etiquette. Whilst the first half of the book has narrowed down the
research object, the second half of the book, Chaps. 5, 6 and 7, is dedi-
cated to the analysis of the sources. An investigation into the compulsory
nature of etiquette is an important first step towards achieving the
research aim of this book: demonstrate that nineteenth-century etiquette
as a social practice can be seen as a historically and geographically situated
manifestation of Discernment (Paternoster 2019: 138; Paternoster forth-
coming). By that token, the terms ‘etiquette’, étiquette, etichetta, etiquette
are first-order terms for the second-order term Discernment.
192 A. Paternoster
The notion of Discernment is now fairly established in the field of

historical politeness for the period going from the ancient world to the
ancien régime. The notion was first introduced by Hill et al. (1986) and
Ide (1989) as the English translation for wakimae to describe the use of
honorifics in contemporary Japanese, which are “socio-pragmatically
obligatory” (Ide 1989: 231 and Matsumoto 1988, 1989). Rather than
being a strategic choice based on the weight of the imposition on face as
proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987/1978), the choice of the appro-
priate honorific is scripted or pre-negotiated, that is, it is more or less
automatically determined by the social context of the interaction.
Interestingly, Hill et al. (1986) also discuss the presence of Discernment
in American English, where, however, its impact is far smaller than in
Japanese. It makes sense, therefore, not to conceive of the difference
between volition languages (based on strategic politeness) and
Discernment languages as a strict dichotomy, a point raised by Okamoto
(1999), Usami (2002), and, in particular, Pizziconi (2003, 2011), who
challenges the ideas (a) that Japanese honorifics are always used slavishly
and in a non-strategic way and (b) that discernment is solely a feature of
Japanese. This line of thought was developed by Kádár and Mills (2013),
who consider Discernment a broader, intercultural phenomenon, which
they define as the “socially dominant norms of relationally constructive
conventional and ritualistic behaviour” (2013: 143). Discernment regards
societal expectancies for “recurrent schematic behaviour” (Kádár and
Mills 2013: 143). In sum, for Kádár and Mills (2013) Discernment
relates to scripted language use, in the case of both conventions and ritu-
als (on rituals, see Chap. 6). It is, they argue, not limited to specific lan-
guages (say, languages of the Middle and Far East), but can equally be
observed in Western cultures. Indeed, they use the term to describe
present-day interactions in very formal “institutional settings” of the
Western world, such as “courtrooms”, “formal business meetings”, “cer-
tain political settings” (2013: 152), which, as Chap. 1 has shown, are
precisely the settings for formal practices related to etiquette, from busi-
ness and corporate etiquette to institutional protocol. That Discernment
comprises recurring, schematic behaviour links it to the notion of politic
politeness (Watts 2003), as noted by Rideaghl and Jucker (2019: 59).
Etiquette, as seen in Chaps. 3 and 4, is related to conventional social
5 Scripts and Lines 193
practices through its customary and normative aspect. The difference

with the Western contemporary contexts for Discernment is as follows:
whereas in the nineteenth century Discernment regulates social behav-
iour in the non-institutional contexts of society etiquette, today it is less
relevant for private settings (expect for fine dining, weddings, funerals…)
and has increasingly moved into the (semi-)institutional contexts listed
by Kádár and Mills (2013), to which I add royal, presidential, military
and diplomatic protocol. Crucially, nineteenth-century etiquette shows
that there is continuity between the social practices of the ancien régime
and the twenty-first-century practices of Discernment identified by
Kádár and Mills (2013). What has changed in respect of the nineteenth
century is the type of contexts codified by Discernment: etiquette has lost
ground in private settings, but it has expanded into business settings. I
see nineteenth-century etiquette as the ‘missing link’ between ancien
régime Discernment and present-day Discernment.
In the founding volume on historical (im)politeness edited by Culpeper
and Kádár (2010) several contributions harvest the explanatory power of
Discernment to investigate numerous deference-devices observed in his-
torical sources. Jucker, for Middle English sources (2010, 2011, 2012),
and Held (2010), for Northern Italian and French (Plantagenet-Angevin)
sources from the thirteenth century until the fifteenth century, use the
term Discernment for a type of politeness that primarily “permits users to
define their correct submission to the given order system” (Held 2010:
212; see Paternoster 2015 on Italian sources from the fourteenth century
to the nineteenth century). Instead of strategically negotiating avoidance
of imposition on other-face, historical Discernment is a pre-negotiated
expression of close adherence to the existing social ranking, which is
firmly anchored in a political and a religious ideology. As a result, defer-
ential forms (such as honorifics and compliments) and humiliative lan-
guage abound: their main function is to make one’s position on the social
ladder recognisable (see Paternoster and Fitzmaurice 2019b). Recently,
Ridealgh and Jucker have applied the term Discernment to two cultures
of the remote past, Late Egyptian and Old English, two lingua-cultures
that share a “very strict hierarchical social system” (2019: 57). Ridealgh
and Jucker (2019) propose the following definition of Discernment:
194 A. Paternoster
We use it [= Discernment] to refer to (linguistic) behaviour which is socially

and situationally adequate and quasi-mandatory and which closely reflects
the social relationship between speaker and addressee, as well as the social
and linguistic context within which the exchange takes place. (Ridealgh
and Jucker 2019: 59)
The main defining elements are: Discernment has a quasi-mandatory

nature; it is based on the social hierarchy; it is adequate to
circumstances.
So far, Chaps. 3 and 4 have discussed the quasi-mandatory nature of
etiquette in numerous ways. It was observed in synonyms, collocates, in
definitions of etiquette in my self-built corpus, in lexicographical find-
ings. This chapter builds upon these preliminary findings in two ways: it
documents how etiquette rules are organised around a limited number
of recurring social circumstances, and how the rules have a script-like
nature, for both non-verbal and verbal behaviour. This addresses two
defining features of Discernment as seen by Ridealgh and Jucker (2019:
59): its quasi-mandatory nature and situational appropriacy. The impor-
tance of the third feature, hierarchy, will be investigated through the
ubiquitous phenomenon of precedence in Chap. 7. Section 5.2 works
with the shortest tables of content found in the corpus and highlights
their organisational principles, as the shortest tables of content can be
expected to contain the essence of etiquette. There are three different
kinds of chapters: rites of passage, occurring only once in a lifetime;
recurring circumstances; transferable skills for network establishment
and maintenance.
Section 5.3 shows how the terms ‘minutiae’ and ‘trifles’ express aware-
ness of the script-like nature of etiquette, besides the (at times ironical)
use of theatrical and choreographical terms to refer to social circum-
stances as scenes for actual performances. Sections 5.4 to 5.6 discuss
sequencing rules for three frequently recurring circumstances, visits, din-
ners and balls. Not only does the reader have to perform certain actions,
he/she has to perform them in a prescribed order. Finally, Sect. 5.7
extends the ‘script’ hypothesis to language advice that consists of set lines
to make introductions or dance invitations.
5.2 The Circumstances of Etiquette

An efficient way to retrieve the quintessential circumstances covered by
etiquette books is to look at the shortest tables of content in the corpus:
which chapter topics does an etiquette book minimally include? Table 5.1
lists the books in the self-built corpus that have the shortest number of
chapters. They are all British, as, indeed, British sources tend to have
lower page numbers (see Chap. 2). Six sources have a number of chapter
topics ranging from 8 to 11, excluding the introductory chapters dedi-
cated to the presentation of the subject matter and the concluding chap-
ters, often dedicated to general remarks. Note that the chapter Introductions
is on introducing people to each other. Typically, these shorter works are
earlier ones, appearing between 1837 and 1857. Two chapters were a bit
harder to place: Amusements covers games during visits, but also theatre
Table 5.1 Topics in etiquette books containing max. 11 different chapters

Chapter topics a b c d e f
Introductions × × × ×
Letter of Introduction × ×
Cleanliness × ×
Dress × × × × × ×
Receiving Visits × × × × × ×
Visiting × × × × × ×
Dining × × × ×
Salutations × × ×
Balls, Evening Parties × × × ×
Amusements × ×
Letter and Note Writing × × ×
Conversation × × × ×
Presents × × ×
Forms of Address ×
Friendship × ×
Courtship × ×
Marriage × × × ×
Domestic Etiquette ×
Servants ×
Total Number 8 11 10 10 11 10
a = Lady de S****** 1837; b = Etiquette for Gentlemen 1838; c = Etiquette for
Ladies 1852; d = A Manual of Etiquette for Ladies 1856; e = Etiquette for Ladies
1857?; f = Etiquette for Gentlemen 1857
196 A. Paternoster
visits and exercise, typically associated with dancing. Forms of address are
indispensable for letter writing, but also for conversation. However, these
doubtful cases form a tiny minority. Mostly chapters have well-defined
topics. In Table 5.1 the sources are chronologically ordered from left
to right.
Table 5.1, arguably, represents the bare bones of etiquette. Three topics
are present in every single source listed: visits, written from the point of
view of the visitor, and its mirroring chapter, receiving visits, written
from the point of view of the host or hostess, besides dress. The omni-
presence of visits is unsurprising, as they are an essential networking tool
to maintain an acquaintance (provided you live within visiting distance).
Visits are also important to start an acquaintance: introductions on their
own will not do as they need to be confirmed by an invitation to visit and
a return visit. Failing this, the acquaintance will remain a greeting
acquaintance. Conversely, spacing out return visits can be used as a means
to end an acquaintance without causing offence. Visits form a particular
circumstance: they take place in a dedicated room (the drawing-room)
and at a dedicated time (mid to late afternoon, even though they are
called ‘morning’ visits). Initial visits are liminal rituals because they oper-
ate a change in the nature of someone’s relationship, that is, to become
acquainted. Chapter 6 will examine the link between ritual and etiquette.
Suffice it to say here that rituals, like politeness conventions, form recur-
ring, schematic behaviour that is (mostly) relationship-forging (Terkourafi
and Kádár 2017: 179). To dress appropriately, however, is a transferable
skill, necessary in a number of circumstances. Most circumstances
demand a specific attire: visitors, for example, arrive in elegant daywear
(which covers women’s arms and neck) and obey strict rules regarding
what to leave in the vestibule and what to keep on: female visitors never
take off shawls and hats (see Fig. 5.1) because formal calls are only sup-
posed to last 15 to 20 minutes. Chapters on dress offer advice on multiple
dress changes per day, from night wear to the most elaborate ball dress
(see Paternoster 2021 on fashion etiquette).
The following topics are present in four of the six sources considered in
Table 5.1: introductions, dining, balls and evening parties, conversation
and marriage. Except for marriages, they relate to fixed circumstances
and transferable skills. That is not to say that these categories are totally
Fig. 5.1 Les visites ‘visits’ (Orval, baronne de 19016: 93). Illustration by
M. Chatelaine, reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
distinct. On the contrary, the transferable skills are fixed features of spe-
cific circumstances, but they can be slotted into more than one circum-
stance: they are, so to speak, modular. Dinners, balls and evening parties
are, like visits, fixed items on the social agenda. Dinners have an impor-
tant networking function: a first dinner invitation confirms that a rela-
tionship is well on its way to becoming established. Balls are mainly
geared towards young people who dance (parents usually do not dance
but chaperone their children) and are a means to encourage marriages.
198 A. Paternoster
The other topics are transferable skills: introductions and conversation

can be slotted into several circumstances. Conversation is important dur-
ing visits and dinners. Introductions are discussed for visits, dinners,
balls, but also for promenades. A whole range of receptions (say, a garden
party) raise the question if introductions are called for or not. Introductions
are a highly sensitive matter, because they have such an important gate-
keeping function: they are the first step towards an acquaintance, which
may very well be undesired.
Marriages form part of a third category of etiquette topics: once-in-a-
life time events, which coincide with religious ceremonies, of which eti-
quette books treat the social aspects, such as dress and presents (a topic of
three sources in Table 5.1): christenings, first communions and confirma-
tions, deaths, funerals and mourning. As a liminal ritual, marriage is
especially important for women who become head of their own house-
hold and start developing their own social circle, while unmarried women
bear a heavy stigma. In the sources considered in Table 5.1, it is usually
one of the last chapters, present also in sources written for men; however,
for some later authors (Bassanvile, Comtesse de 1867; Staffe, Baronne
189125/1889; Gibus del Mattino 1900; Orval, Baronne d’ 19016), mar-
riage is so important that it is the very first chapter of the book. What sets
marriage apart from recurring circumstances is that it is (usually) a once
in a lifetime event—although most sources discuss second marriages for
widowed partners. Despite the fact that wedding procedures unroll over
a longer time frame, the various steps are still very carefully punctuated,
stretching from initial courtship (absent on the European mainland
where a marriage project starts with negotiations by the groom-to-be,
over which the bride-to-be is kept completely in the dark) to the return
from the honeymoon, marking the start of procedures to establish a new
social circle. Wedding ceremonies are described, not as religious events,
but as full-blown social events, with abundance of details regarding
invites, catering, presents, carriages, flower arrangements and dress (they
are remarkably similar to present-day wedding planning). Importantly,
not only are religious ceremonies treated as social events, they are also
often accompanied by legal procedures. Chapters on marriage extensively
document the administrative itinerary to be followed, and the same is
true for deaths and, to a lesser extent, for births. Needless to say, these
legal steps are absolutely mandatory and reinforce the compulsory aspect
of etiquette. French sources especially include les formalités légales or civi-
les ‘legal formalities’ (Bassanville, Comtesse de 1867; Dufaux de La
Jonchère 1878–18886; Orval, Baronne d’ 19016; Chambon 1907). UK
sources also include detailed explanations regarding the different types of
marriage licences available (Court Etiquette 1849; [Cheadle] 1872;
Routledge and Sons 1875?).
The following topics appear in three out of six sources: salutations, let-
ter and note writing, presents. All three are transferable skills. Like intro-
ductions, salutations have an important gatekeeping function as they
constitute a safety valve. If an introduction was made despite it being
undesirable, withholding a salutation—by pretending not to notice the
other party—is an inoffensive means of ending an acquaintance whilst
still in a very early stage. This practice displays interesting intercultural
differences as regards who greets first. The person who initiates the greet-
ing is the one with most power (men on the European mainland, women
in UK and US) because once greeted, the other must respond (see Sect.
6.6 on destructive rituals). ‘Recognising’ someone subtly indicates that
there is a wish to be greeted and this confirms the acquaintance, at least
as a greeting acquaintance. Salutations are treated as a fixed part of street
etiquette, so they are more linked to a specific time and place and are a
bit less transferable to other circumstances. Letter-writing is a recurring
topic; its function is to keep up an acquaintance with people who live too
far away to visit regularly. Note-writing (invitations and their acceptance
or refusal) is discussed for dinners and balls, but also for marriages, etc.
Announcements have to be written for births, marriages and deaths, but
also for ‘at home’ days. Usually, the sources provide templates consisting
of fixed formulae with gaps to insert details regarding venue, date, names,
etc. Presents are discussed for marriages and for family celebrations
(birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Christmas, etc).
Finally, the following topics appear in two of the six sources: letters of
introductions, cleanliness, amusements, friendship and courtship. All
regard transferable skills. Letters of introductions have a gatekeeping
function and the advice is not to give one lightly. Finally, the following
200 A. Paternoster
topics occur only once and are all transferable skills: forms of address,
domestic etiquette and servants. Forms of address regard conversation
and letter writing. Domestic etiquette regulates the interaction between
husband and wife. In sum, the chapters that prove most popular in
Table 5.1 are the ones treating recurring circumstances.
Later sources cover more circumstances. Towards the end of the nine-
teenth century social gatherings and parties diversify into Evening parties,
Receptions and Suppers; Dancing and Masquerades; Soirées, Musicales and
Lawn Parties; Breakfasts, Luncheons, and Teas, followed by Miscellaneous
Entertainments, as the relevant chapter titles show in Cooke (1899/1896).
In a quest to be original, authors include innovative topics such as tele-
phone, bicycle or automobile etiquette, which follow technological
advances. Travel etiquette is expanding with chapters on public transport
(trains, trams, steamboats), next to chapters on various types of resorts
(spa, beach, mountain resorts) and accommodation (country houses and
châteaux, hotels, yachts). Sports also enter etiquette books as demon-
strated by Cooke’s chapter on Walking, Riding, Boating, Driving
(1899/1896). Harland and Van de Water’s (1905) chapter on Etiquette in
Sport mentions tennis, golf, automobiling, yachting, boating, canoeing
and swimming. Clubs become popular and sources start including club
etiquette for men and women (Armstrong 1908; Bruck-Auffenberg
1900/1897). In a way, the success of etiquette books probably explodes
because of this proliferation of topics, which undermines the systematic
approach typical of early examples, whilst there is fierce competition with
women’s magazines, which were far better equipped to give timely
updates.
5.3 On Choreographies and Scripts

Having noted the importance of chapters on recurring social circum-
stances in etiquette books, I now aim to highlight their scripted nature as
a means of demonstrating the quasi-mandatory nature of etiquette.
Typically, chapters on recurring circumstances such as visits, dinners,
balls are constructed as a series of tiny steps, which must be followed with
great precision. Because of the sheer number of steps, etiquette is hugely
complicated. In the case of politeness, the subject matter of conduct

books, the Golden Rule works as an overarching rule of which particular
conduct choices can be inferred by deduction. With etiquette, a deduc-
tive argumentation does not work—also because rules are often absurd
(see Sect. 3.2.1). Etiquette readers must know these tiny rules, they have
to memorise them and retrieve them on the spot; consequently, there is
considerable room for error as Chap. 6 will show. The fixed circumstances
share this schematic nature with the transferable skills and the religious
ceremonies, but scripts are more apparent with fixed circumstances.
The reflexive vocabulary that sources use to talk about this detailed
approach and the resulting proliferation of rules is encapsulated in the
term minutiae. UK Sources talk about the “minutiae” of dinner arrange-
ments (Manners and Tone 18802/1879: 78). The following source uses
both ‘minutiae’ and the related term ‘punctilios’ (literally ‘little points’) in
one and the same sentence, again in reference to dining etiquette:
Attention to these little punctilios are very important; and you must not
imagine for a moment that small acts and observances are unworthy of
your regard: such things are not immaterial, for upon your attention to the
minutiæ of Etiquette depends your character as a “homme du monde.”
(Etiquette for Gentlemen 1852: 12)
The term ‘minutiae’ appears twice in the US corpus and 11 times in the
UK corpus. French sources adopt the term minuties (seven hits):
Dans un grand repas, il peut arriver qu’on ignore toutes ces minuties exi-
gibles à la table du riche; mais non seulement il ne faut pas s’en moquer,
mais encore les appliquer à la table la plus modeste. ‘At a formal dinner, it
may happen that we ignore all these minutiae that are required at the table
of a rich host; but not only they must not be laughed at, we must also apply
them at the most modest of tables.’ (Les usages du monde 1880: 80)
In Iviglia, author of an Italian etiquette book for army officers, the para-
graph called minuzie importanti ‘important minutiae’ regards the officer’s
dress code for a ball (1907: 85). Minuzie appears nine times in the Italian
202 A. Paternoster
corpus. Dutch sources use the term kleinigheden (‘minutiae’, ‘trifles’, 37

occurrences). Here the term is, once more, related to dining:
Als de soep of de hors d’oeuvre wordt rondgediend, begint gij niet dadelijk
te eten zoodra gij een vol bord voor u hebt; gij wacht tot de gastvrouw
voorzien is. Ik zie dikwijls menschen, en vooral heeren, die hier tegen zon-
digen; maar als dame moet men juist op zulke kleinigheden letten. ‘When
the soup or hors d’oeuvre is served, you do not begin to eat as soon as you
have a full plate in front of you; you wait until the hostess is served. I often
see people, and especially gentlemen, who sin against this; but as a lady one
must pay particular attention to such trifles.’ (M., v. d. 19108/1893: 152)
Minutiae and punctilios are no ‘trifles’ and need to be learned:
“They are, indeed, innumerable,” said Delille; “and the most annoying fact
of all is, that not all the wit and good sense in the world can help one to
divine them untaught.” (Routledge and Sons 1875?: 18)
The poet Delille and the Abbé ‘Abbot’ Cosson dine at Versailles. Cosson
thinks his dining manners are impeccable, but, to his surprise, Delille
makes a long list of all the etiquette errors made by the abbot. This anec-
dote is a true staple of dining etiquette, and it is often used to underline
the importance of knowing the fine detail of the rules. In the UK sources,
it also appears in How to Behave 1865/1852. It is quoted in three US
sources (The Laws of Etiquette 18362; A Manual of Politeness 1837; Roberts
1857), three French ones (Lambert, Mme 1870?; Burani 1879; Les usages
du monde 1880) and one Dutch one, Lessen over de wellevendheid voor
heeren (18792/1869), the translation of George Routledge’s manual. Only
in the Italian sources does the anecdote not circulate.
The Cosson anecdote conveys the lesson that etiquette needs to be
learned; it cannot be deduced from general principles such as the Golden
Rule, as explained in Chap. 3. This requirement to memorise minute
rules quite naturally is conducive to theatrical and choreographic refer-
ences, where scenarios and steps need to be learned by heart. Overall,
dancing is warmly recommended as a form of exercise because it helps
with body posture and gait, covered by the term ‘deportment’. In an early
American source from the 1830s the chapter Deportment quotes a 20-page
long section from a dance master who goes by the name of Gallini:
“Gallini, a man far superior to dancing-masters generally, has written an
excellent paper on this subject [= deportment], which I am sure I shall
gratify my readers by quoting at some length” (A Manual of Politeness
1837: 24). The quote contains minute rules for executing a perfect
curtsey:
When walking, the lady stops in such a manner that the weight of the body
may rest upon the limb which is advanced. Then, moving the foot which is
behind from the fourth hinder position, she causes it to assume succes-
sively the third and the second. Having arrived at the latter, she shifts the
weight of the body upon the leg forming it, brings the other into the third
position behind, and inclining the body slightly forward, passes it immedi-
ately into the fourth behind. Preserving still the weight on the advanced
leg, the knees must now bend, and the head and body further incline, and
gently sink, to complete the curtsey. (A Manual of Politeness 1837: 50)
And so on to for the ‘rising’ movement of the body to finish the sequence.
Bows and curtseys are particularly important for the court audience or
Court Drawing-Rooms, as seen in the previous chapter. Here, I stress the
point that these sequences are so complicated that they need rehearsing,
a term already seen in respect of Napoleon’s Imperial Etiquette. To curtsey
before the queen or her representative is difficult and Louise Stratenus, a
Dutch etiquette writer, is adamant that it needs “zooveel mogelijk
oefenen” ‘as much practice as possible’ (1887: 92). Similarly, The Book of
Fashionable Life recommends: “No one should presume to go through
the ordeal of presentation without much preliminary training; for, with
the best social education and self-possession a person may be utterly at
fault in the Queen’s drawing-room” (18452: 46). Section 4.4 has shown
the various steps involved in kissing the Queen’s hand. This choreo-
graphic nature of etiquette rules is linked to the fact that some authors are
dance masters. To the extent it pushes Moore, author of Sensible Etiquette,
to complain about this very fact: “Books treating of etiquette alone are
204 A. Paternoster
often written by dancing-masters and Turveydrops and others knowing

little of the customs of the best society of any land, and who cannot
therefore be trusted in points which conflict with common-sense views”
(Moore 18782: 235).1 Moore, rather, wants her etiquette manual to be
based on common sense, which she feels is lacking in the needlessly com-
plicated choreographic accounts. She may have a point. James Pitt,
author of Instructions in Etiquette (1840?3/1828) puts his profession
“Professor of Dancing and Fencing” on the front page, probably in the
hope that it will function as a selling argument. Although his etiquette
books does not contain a chapter on dancing, his rules for the deport-
ment of a person who listens to someone else during a conversation leave
no detail uncovered:
If the whole of the company are standing, and you are addressed by any
one in particular, you must immediately direct your whole attention to
him only. Your body perfectly upright, but not stiff, a little turned to the
right or left, with the face completely towards him, looking a little over one
shoulder, the arms across the waist, the upper hand open, or the hands
clasped and hanging down in front, one foot advanced a little, the body
resting upon that foot which is behind. If the person who speaks to you is
giving any directions, every time you think it necessary to assent, incline
the body and head gracefully forward. Should the individual present any
thing, you keep the body bent until you have received it; and when you
leave him, slide smoothly away, sinking at the same time. (Pitt
1840?3/1828: 45–46)
Other etiquette books contain lengthy sections dedicated to dance chore-

ographies. Routledge’s Manuel of Etiquette contains seven parts, one of
which is called Ball-Room Companion. It includes choreographies for 21
different dances. I quote the Polka Mazurka routine, only because it
is short:
The time is 3/8, and quicker than that of the Cellarius.
1
In the Dickens novel Bleak House, 1853, Prince Turveydrop is a dancing master and proprietor of
a dance studio, who is overly concerned with his outward appearance.
Gentleman takes his partner as in the valse. Figure en tournant. We

describe the steps for the gentleman; the lady simply reverses the order of
the feet, using left foot for right throughout.
1st beat.—Rest on right foot, with left foot a little raised behind, and
slide left foot to the left.
2nd beat.—Spring on the right foot, bringing it up to where the left foot
is, and raising the latter in front.
3rd beat.—Spring once more on right foot, passing left foot behind
without touching the ground with it; this ends first bar.
2nd bar, 1st beat.—Slide left foot to the left, as before.
2nd beat.—Spring on right foot, as before, and bring it up to the place
of left foot, raising latter at same moment.
3rd beat.—Fall on the left foot, and raise the right foot behind; end of
second bar.
Begin third bar with right foot, and continue as before. You turn half
round in the first three beats, and complete the circle in the second three.
(Routledge and Sons 1875?: 94)
The analogy with Pitt’s paragraph on the listener’s deportment is remark-

able. Dance choreographies are found in Beeton 1876c, Bergando, Il
conte 1882/1881, Modern Etiquette 1887/1871, to name but a few.
Furthermore, there are also dedicated manuals specialising in ball-room
etiquette such as the Etiquette of the Ball-Room and Guide to the New and
Fashionable Dances, Etc. Containing the Steps and Figures of Quadrilles,
Valses, Polkas, Galops, Mazourkas, Country Dances, Etc. With Hints and
Instructions Respecting Toilet and Deportment by Mrs. Nicholas Henderson,
Teacher of Dancing, No. 19 Newman Street, Oxford Street (1850?). She
makes sure to advertise her address in the front matter. The book is mainly
dedicated to dance steps; however, it also includes two chapters on Toilet
and Ball-Room Etiquette, showing the flawless transition between ball
etiquette and dance steps. Kristen Richardsons’ The Season. A Social
History of the Debutante writes about dance masters as social arbiters who
“traded in information and status” because they “could ruin a young
woman’s marriage prospects by excluding her from the dance or raise
them by naming a dance after her, letting her lead the dance, or choosing
the best partner for her” (2019: 49).
206 A. Paternoster
Another performing art that underpins the scripted nature of etiquette

is drama. The dinner script is discussed in Sect. 5.5, suffice it here to note
an awareness in the authors that their discourse resembles a theatre play.
Italian Anna Vertua Gentile talks about formal dinner. Guests assemble
in the drawing-room, and when the butler announces that dinner is
ready, they prepare to transit to the dining-room. This ends the first part
of the proceedings, and Vertua Gentile ironically comments: “Così finisce
il prologo della commedia.” ‘Thus ends the prologue of the comedy’
(1897: 302, original emphasis). After dinner, guests return to the drawing-
room to enjoy coffee and conversation. Vertua Gentile concludes: “E qui
finisce la commedia.” ‘And here the comedy ends’ (1897: 303). The
Baronne d’Orval uses a theatre metaphor as a title for a paragraph related
to ball-room etiquette. The paragraph La mise en scène ‘the staging’ sees
the hosts taking their positions on the stage, just before the guests arrive
(Orval, Baronne d’ 19016: 235–236):
En prenant au figuré toute la soirée, on pourrait dire que les derniers

préparatifs sont, comme la mise en scène de la grande comédie qui va
se jouer.
Le maître, la maîtresse de la maison sont à leur poste à l’entrée des salons,
prêts à recevoir leurs invités.
Plus de soucis du côté matériel de la soirée, tout a été vu et approuvé; le
rideau peut se lever à l’entrée du premier arrivant. ‘Taking the whole eve-
ning figuratively, one could say that the final preparations are like the stag-
ing of the great comedy that is about to be played out. The master and
mistress of the house are at their post at the entrance to the drawing-rooms,
ready to receive their guests. No more worries about the material side of the
evening, everything has been seen and approved; the curtain can be raised
at the entrance of the first arrival.’ (Orval, Baronne d’ 19016: 235)
The salons form a stage, and the hosts and guest are the actors: when the
first guest arrives, the curtains are raised and the comedy begins. The
resemblance with Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday
Life (1956) springs to mind, with his dramaturgical approach to social
interaction where hosts are actors, performing a role in front of an audi-
ence, with a front and a backstage. However, my line of argument is more
that the various scenes of social life are written as a script: in other words,
to continue the theatrical metaphor myself, there is no room for
improvisation.
This section on minutiae shows what I would call a metacognitive
awareness in etiquette sources. Kádár and Haugh use this term for “reflex-
ive presentations of cognitively grounded states, such as beliefs, thoughts,
desires, attitudes and expectations” (2013: 214). Metacognitive represen-
tations can be of a deontic nature (about what “can, may or should hap-
pen”) as well as of an epistemic nature (about “who knows what and how
certain they are about it, and what counts as new or given information for
participants” (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 214). I use metacognitive aware-
ness in the second, epistemic, meaning, as a notion common in cognitive
psychology and pedagogy (Dunlosky and Metcalfe 2008): how do eti-
quette manuals conceive of the cognitive processes of applying rules to
specific situations? In other words, how do they conceive of the reader’s
epistemic processes when he or she needs to learn and retrieve etiquette
rules? And, looking ahead to Chap. 6, what happens in case of a discrep-
ancy between the knowledge deficit of the etiquette novice and a knowl-
edgeable audience?
5.4 The Drawing-Room Script

In the previous section, authors have shown a metacognitive awareness of
etiquette: its rules are plentiful and minute; therefore, the correct sequenc-
ing of the rules needs to be memorised, as if they were the steps of a dance
(a choreography) or the stage directions of a theatre play (a script). The
central sections of Chap. 5 are dedicated to three fixed circumstances—
visits, dinners and balls—with the aim to document their scripted and
sequenced nature. I will show an example for each of the three circum-
stances. I assume the examples to be quite self-explanatory and not much
analysis is needed. Let us start with visits. Section 5.2 has shown that
visits are a true staple of early sources. In 1901 Baronne d’Orval still dedi-
cates a 40-page chapter to visits. Most sources divide visits in a certain
number of types and each type comes with its own rules: “Of visits there
are various kinds: visits of congratulation, visits of condolence, visits of
208 A. Paternoster
ceremony, visits of friendship. To each belong different customs.” (The

Laws of Etiquette 18362: 73). Visits between friends form a distinct cate-
gory because for friends there are no etiquette rules. However, other visits
are usually split between strictly compulsory visits and visits conceived to
maintain the acquaintance. The Comtesse de Magallon proposes the fol-
lowing classification. Compulsory visits (“visites obligatoires”) comprise
New Year’s Day visits to a superior in rank; wedding visits made by the
newly wed couple, visits to congratulate (when a friend or an acquain-
tance has been promoted), to express gratitude after receiving a gift, to
express condolences and, finally, so-called after-calls (visite de digestion,
literally ‘digestive visit’) after an invitation, whether accepted or not. The
visites de relations are ‘calls’, which take place during the lady’s fixed receiv-
ing day or ‘at home’ day and are meant to maintain the acquaintance
(Magallon, La Comtesse de 1910: 22–25).
The social institution of the lady’s fixed receiving day is present across
the entire corpus: it is called giorno in Italian, jour in French and in
Dutch, where the word functions as a borrowing (on the ‘at-home’ day,
which in Britain takes off in the 1850s, see Curtin 1981: 244–247). Calls
had to be carefully timed. Visitors must respect the lady’s chosen day,
which usually is indicated on her card. They must arrive in the second
half of the afternoon and stay 15–20 minutes. They must also respect an
interval between visits, which more of less mirrors the interval that was
left by the hostess (on the importance of time as an organisational prin-
ciple of etiquette rules see Fisher 1992: 94–104). Etiquette of New York
Today dedicates two chapters to “established rules which regulate visiting,
the use of cards, the leaving or sending of cards” (Learned 1906: 108).
Note that this is a relatively simple script, which I have chosen for reasons
of space. The script starts when the door is opened by the servant. The
first scene is set in the hall and comprises the opportune moment for
leaving a card:
When making a call a visitor asks the servant who opens the door, “Is Mrs.
Dash at home?” If there are other ladies in the family the words may be,
“Are the ladies at home?” or, “Are the ladies receiving?” If the answer is in
the affirmative the visitor enters without other remark, giving her cards to
the servant, who should receive them on a small tray which is kept in the
hall for the purpose, or the visitor may lay them on the hall table in pass-
ing. These are left as a reminder that one has called. If the ladies are not in
the drawing-room at the time the servant should take the cards upstairs to
them after ushering the visitor into the drawing-room, but if the ladies are
in the drawing-room the servant must not carry the cards to them but put
down the tray containing the cards on the hall table. (Learned
1906: 116–117)
Note the presence of set phrases. After the hall-routine comes the
drawing-room routine. First part, how to enter?
The servant leads the way to the drawing-room door, drawing aside the
portiere, or opening the door, without knocking on it. A man-servant
inquires civilly the name of the visitor, stands aside to allow the visitor to
pass, and announces the visitor’s name. A maid observes the rules given
except that she does not announce a name. If a maid neglects to conduct a
visitor to the drawing-room the visitor enters without lingering in the hall.
If the hostess is not in the room when a visitor arrives the visitor seats her-
self and awaits the coming of the hostess and rises when she enters. (Learned
1906: 117)
Care is taken to cover for variations on the theme, such as the negligence
of a maid, or the absence of the hostess. In the drawing-room, attention
turns to greeting, seating and the arrival of new visitors:
When making a call a first visitor, if a lady, does not rise when another visi-
tor enters; if a man, he should rise. The hostess rises and advances to greet
her visitor by shaking hands. She introduces her guests to each other, and
the new arrival is expected to seat herself near the hostess and other visitor.
The hostess usually says, “Will you sit here?” or, “Where will you sit?” or
something equally informal and natural, and both seat themselves simulta-
neously and all converse together. It is not good form to say, “Will you be
seated?” or “ Will you take a seat?” (Learned 1906: 118–119)
Again, note the set phrases, which act like scripts lines. Next step: leave-
taking. When is it proper to go and what is the routine?
210 A. Paternoster
The visitor who has been the first to arrive should be the first to leave. If the
first visitor’s call has already exceeded ten or fifteen minutes she should take
leave as soon as she can courteously do so. A hostess rises and shakes hands
with a guest who is leaving. If the other visitor is a man he must rise and
remain standing while his hostess is standing. A hostess touches an electric
bell to notify a servant that a guest is leaving, for whom the front door
must be opened. If she has but one visitor at the moment she may accom-
pany her to the door if she pleases; but if she has other guests she may not
leave them and must take leave of her parting guest in the drawing-room.
(Learned 1906: 119)
While the hostess may venture as far as the door of the drawing-room,
the final part of the scenario is played in the hall in presence of the servant.
The various steps are arriving in the hall with card-leaving; entering the
drawing-room; greeting; finding a seat; behaviour towards other guests;
leave-taking and exit. Other sources talk extensively about refreshments,
usually tea with cake. Serao, who often writes on gastronomy in her soci-
ety column, offers mouth-watering instructions for a table à thé renforcée
or high tea (in French in the original, Gibus del Mattino 1900: 124). An
inescapable point of visiting etiquette is card-leaving, which usually fills a
chapter of its own, as indeed in Learned (1906: 108–115). A card repre-
sents a visit and, consequently, its use is subject to a rigid set of rules:
“The stress laid by society upon the correct usage of these magic bits of
pasteboard will not seem unnecessary when it is remembered that the
visiting card, socially defined, means, and is frequently made to take the
place of, one’s self ” (Cooke 1899/1896: 51). Cooke’s chapter Visiting
Cards comprises rules for their style, size, engraving of the name with the
correct title, the inclusion of the address (discouraged for a woman, even
when married), different types of cards. It discusses cornering cards and
leaving cards. The level of complication usually goes up steeply when it
comes to the precise number of cards to be left. Frances Stevens stands
out by the clarity of her instructions:
The lady calling does not give her visiting card to the servant if the mistress
of the house is at home. On leaving the house she leaves two of her hus-
band’s cards on the hall table, one card for the master and one for the
mistress of the house. Having seen the lady she would not leave one of her
own cards. If the person called upon is not at home, three cards are left; one
of her own and two of her husband’s, unless their names are engraved on
one card, in which case only one of the gentleman’s is left. A lady leaves a
card for a lady only, while a gentleman leaves for both the lady and gentle-
man. Cards are left for the daughters of the family. If there are sons a lady
would not leave her card but her husband’s card or cards for them. If the
lady and gentleman call and the mistress is at home, the gentleman leaves
a card for the master of the house; but if both are at home, no cards are left.
Etiquette now graciously permits a card to answer the perpose [sic] of a call
between persons moving in the same circle who wish to be on very ceremo-
nious terms. (Stevens 1884: 16)
This is still dizzyingly complicated. British rules are included in Manners

and Tone of Good Society, where it is the topic of the first chapter given
that it is “the groundwork or nucleus in general society of all acquain-
tanceships” (18802/1879: 1). Yet proceedings can get even more compli-
cated when there are staying guests in the house, who also need to be
acknowledged by a card. The usage of cards, however, is justified by the
size of one’s social circle. If it becomes impossible to perform regular visits
in person, a card can perform the same function; however, a “card must
be returned by a card, a call by a call” (Stevens 1884: 16). The card has
the advantage of maintaining the acquaintance, even if only left once a
year, on New Year’s Day (See Colombi, Marchesa 1877: 121–122).
5.5 The Dining-Room Script

In Sect. 5.2, the references to the minutiae of etiquette were mostly made
in the context of formal dining. While card-leaving is tricky, many sources
point out that dining is the most difficult art of all: “To perform the
Etiquette of the dinner-table elegantly and efficiently is a valuable and
difficult art, which, where there is one succeeds in acquiring, twenty fail
[…]” (Etiquette for Gentlemen 1852: 25–26). Indeed, the same source
states, “I know of no situation so trying to the novice in the ‘beau monde,’
as that of his first dinner party”, therefore, the reader “may make himself
perfectly ‘au fait’ by retaining the following maxims in his memory, and
212 A. Paternoster
acting up to them” (Etiquette for Gentlemen 1852: 22; see also Routledge
and Sons 1875?: 18 and 55). When etiquette is difficult or ‘trying’, the
remedy is always to learn it by heart. Not only guests, hosts as well face
the same level of difficulty: “To perform faultlessly the honours of the
table, is one of the most difficult things in society: it might indeed be
asserted without much fear of contradiction, that no man has as yet ever
reached exact propriety in his office as host […]” (The Laws of Etiquette
18362: 139 and copied word for word in How to Behave 1865/1852: 83
and Roberts 1857: 86).
Authors present their chapters on dinner etiquette as sequenced: “we
commence at the commencement, and then proceed to the moment
when you take leave officially, or vanish unseen” (The Laws of Etiquette
18362: 135). British How to Behave and American Samuel Roberts will
guide the reader through the “common routine of a fashionable dinner”
(resp. 1865/1852: 81 and 1857: 84). Indeed, in these two sources every
paragraph title forms a step in the scripts: 1. Invitations; 2. Dress; 3.
Punctuality; 4. Going to the Table; 5. Arrangements of Guests; 6. Duties
of the Host; 7. Duties of the Guests. Arguably, the script is incomplete as
it leaves guests and hosts high and dry at the table and no mention is
made of how a dinner party ends. The Dutch chapter Uit dineeren ‘Dining
Out’ (M., v. d. 19108/1893: 148–157) covers more steps. The table of
content lists the following topics: De uitnoodiging en het toilet; het bin-
nenkomen; de begroeting; ’t aanspreken; ’t geleide aan tafel; de vormen
bij de gerechten, wijnen, vruchten; ’t gesprek; ’t bedienen; ’t vertrek; de
gastvrouw; tafelversieringen; aantal personen en gerechten. ‘Invitation
and dress; arrival; greetings; forms of address; conducting to the table;
forms for the dishes, wines, fruits; conversation; service; departure; the
hostess; table decorations; number of guests and dishes’. Except for the
last three items, each paragraph represents a single step, with the central
steps dedicated to the actual meal covering parallel skills: table manners,
conversation and service. For Mme L. de Nogent, I lift the sequencing
references out of the dinner chapter. First things first: invitations and
replies. For superiors the invitation must be verbal, for equals and inferi-
ors a written or printed note will suffice:
Ces invitations se font huit ou dix jours à l’avance. […]

On doit répondre aussitôt que possible […]. ‘These invitations are made
eight or ten days in advance. […] You must reply as soon as possible’
(Nogent, Mme de 1886: 138–139)
Answering quickly is imperative, whether to accept or to decline. The

chapter then focusses on the preparations by the hostess and picks up the
sequencing at the arrival of the guest, who must be punctual. The first
‘act’ of the ‘play’ takes place in the drawing-room, where guests are intro-
duced to each other. When the butler announces that dinner is served,
guests form a procession—la marche or le cortège, see Fig. 5.2—to transit
into the dining-room. As with visits, transitions from one room to
another require minute rules. The host goes first with the oldest lady, who
will receive the place of honour, and the procession is closed by the host-
ess with the male guest of honour. For the other guests, the order of pre-
cedence is based on age:
On doit se rendre à un dîner, à un déjeuner, à un souper, etc., à l’heure

exacte fixée sur l’invitation.
On présente les unes aux autres, dans son salon, les personnes qui pren-
nent part au repas.
À l’annonce du domestique: Madame est servie, la maîtresse de maison
s’approche de l’homme qui a droit au plus d’honneur et le prie de la con-
duire à table. Ce dernier offre son bras droit et attend, pour entrer dans la
salle à manger, que tout le monde soit passé. Le maître de la maison ouvre
la marche avec la dame la plus âgée, puis viennent les autres personnes par
rang d’âge, les jeunes gens les derniers.
Les cavaliers marchent un peu en avant et entrent les premiers dans une
porte pour ne pas marcher sur la traîne des dames. ‘Guests must arrive for
dinner, lunch, supper, etc., at the exact time specified on the invitation.
You present to each other, in your drawing-room, the people who take part
in the meal. When the butler announces: dinner is served, the hostess goes
towards the man who is entitled to the most honour and asks him to lead
her to the table. The latter offers his right arm and waits, before entering
the dining-room, until everyone has passed. The master of the house opens
the procession with the oldest lady, then the other guests come by age
group, the young people last.
214 A. Paternoster
Fig. 5.2 The procession (Orval, Baronne d’ 19016: 168). Illustration by

M. Chatelaine, reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
The men walk a little ahead and go through the door first so as not to
step on the trail of the ladies.’ (Nogent, Mme de 1886: 145, origi-
nal emphasis)
A rare etiquette controversy regards the arm that is to be given to a woman

in a procession. In Fig. 5.2 the men offer their left arm (D’Orval indeed
wants the left arm to be offered 19016: 163), but de Nogent wants the
right arm. The second ‘act’ takes place in the dining-room. The guests
respect the seating plan, indicated by name cards, and only sit down at
the signal of the hostess. This part of the chapter includes rules for paral-
lel actions: service, table manners and conversation:
Lorsqu’on arrive dans la salle à manger, les hommes cherchent, sur les
cartes, le nom de la personne qu’ils ont conduite; puis, une fois ces places
trouvées, ils saluent et cherchent la leur. Chacun attend alors, derrière sa
chaise, que la maîtresse de la maison ait donné le signal, pour s’asseoir.
‘When entering the dining-room, the men look on slips of paper to find
the name of the person they have taken down; then, once these places have
been found, they take leave and look for theirs. Everyone then waits,
behind their chair, for the hostess to give the signal to sit down.’ (Nogent,
Mme de 1886: 146)
The sequencing recommences after dessert. The party performs the final
‘act’, which is set in the drawing-room:
La maîtresse de maison donne le signal pour quitter la salle à manger.

Chaque personne se lève et laisse sa serviette sur la table. Les messieurs
offrent leur bras à leur voisine de droite, et contrairement à l’ordre qui a été
suivi pour entrer dans la salle à manger, c’est la maîtresse de maison qui en
sort la première et son mari le dernier.
Après avoir dîné chez quelqu’un on doit y passer la soirée ou tout au
moins quelques heures de la soirée. On organise quelquefois des jeux dits
de salon, on fait une partie de cartes suivant le nombre de personnes
présentes, ou bien encore on joue du piano ou l’on chante. ‘The hostess
gives the signal to leave the dining-room. Each person gets up and leaves
the napkin on the table. The gentlemen offer their arms to their neighbour
216 A. Paternoster
on the right, and contrary to the order that has been followed to enter the
dining-room, it is the hostess who comes out first and her husband last.
After having dinner at someone’s house you must spend the evening there
or at least a few hours of the evening. Sometimes games are organised,
guests may play a game of cards depending on the number of people pres-
ent, or else someone plays the piano or sings.’ (Nogent, Mme de 1886: 153)
A second procession is formed to go back into the drawing-room, this

time in reverse order: the hostess leads the way and her husband is last. In
the drawing-room, coffee is served and guest must spend at least part of
their evening with the hosts. This chapter does not give rules for leave-
taking either. Usually, nobody leaves before the guests of honour. A ser-
vant calls for carriages as and when people leave and so the evening ends.
There is some cross-cultural variation on this pattern, but I consider it
minimal. Rules of precedence for the seating plan and the procession will
be discussed in Chap. 7, suffice it here to say that, although the rules of
establishing precedence may vary, the processions are seen everywhere.
Women and men may be separated either at their arrival or after the
meal. However, this separation is temporary: the groups will at some
point reunite and it is correct to keep the separation as short as possible.
In American and British sources, male guests stay in the dining-room
when women withdraw. This is an American sequence:
When all have finished dessert, the hostess gives the signal that dinner is
ended by pushing back her chair, and the ladies repair to the drawing-
room, the oldest leading, the youngest following last, and the gentlemen
repairing to the library or smoking-room. In about half an hour tea is
served in the drawing-room, with a cake basket of crackers or little cakes.
The gentlemen join the ladies and after a little chat over their ups, all are at
liberty to leave. (Houghton et al. 18837/1882: 168)
In sum, the dinner script comprises three ‘acts’—reception in the

drawing-room, dinner in the dining-room, tea or coffee in the drawing-
room—with two processions between the acts. For similar scripts, see
Dutch Viroflay-Montrecourt, de (19194/1910: 33–47); Italian Vertua
Gentile (1897: 299–303); British Manners and Tone (18802/1879:
77–103).
5.6 The Ball-Room Script

In the UK and the US two types of balls are considered, public and pri-
vate balls, and each occasion has slightly different rules. On the European
continent, sources tend to only consider private balls (see Fig. 5.3). Here
I turn to an Italian source. As for previous sections, for reasons of space I
lift the indications for correct sequencing out of Serao’s chapter La festa
da ballo ‘The Ball’. Like the dinner script, the ball script starts with the
invitation:
Gli inviti per una grande festa da ballo, si lanciano almeno un mese prima:
tanto più se si è nella grande stagione dei ricevimenti e delle feste. ‘The
invitations for a grand ball are sent out at least a month in advance: all the
more so if it takes place in the high season for receptions and parties.’
(Gibus del Mattino 1900: 102)
Compared to the dinner script, the interval for sending out an invitation
is getting longer because the ladies “debbono pensare al loro vestito!”
Fig. 5.3 Le bal de société ‘the society ball’ (Boitard 1862/1851: 13). Reproduced
from gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
218 A. Paternoster
“have their dress to think about!” (Gibus del Mattino 1900: 102). The
first stage of the evening consists in welcoming the guests. The hosts are
ready nice and early and receive in a drawing-room adjacent to the
vestibule, from where they accompany their guests into the next
drawing-room:
I padroni di casa, che danno una festa da ballo, debbono essere pronti a
ricevere, cioè in grande toilette, almeno tre quarti d’ora prima del loro
invito: non si sa mai, vi sono sempre degli invitati che vengono prestissimo!
Poi, è sempre necessario dare un ultimo sguardo alle sale, ai lumi, ai fiori,
alla table à thé, al buffet. Se non vi sono, fra gli invitati o sovrani o principi
del sangue, basta che i padroni di casa stieno fermi nella seconda anticam-
era, quella che viene subito dopo la guardaroba: colà essi aspettano i loro
invitati, per salutarli, per iscambiar con loro qualche frase, per accompag-
narli sino alla porta del primo salone, non più oltre, ritornando a mettersi
al proprio posto, nella seconda anticamera, subito. ‘Hosts who give a ball,
must be ready to receive, that is, in full evening dress, at least three quarters
of an hour before the time specified on the invitation: you never know,
there are always guests who come very early! Anyway, it is always necessary
to take a last look at the rooms, the lights, the flowers, the tea table, the
buffet. If there are neither kings nor princes of the blood among the guests,
it suffices for the hosts to stay in the second antechamber, the one that
comes immediately after the cloakroom: there they await their guests, they
greet them, have a brief exchange, accompany them as far as the door of the
first drawing-room, no further, and return to their place, immediately, in
the second antechamber.’ (Gibus del Mattino 1900: 105)
After most guests have arrived, towards midnight the hosts move position
and mix with the guests to see to all their needs:
Nei balli, ove non sono sovrani o principi del sangue, i padroni di casa
restano nella seconda anticamera almeno dalle dieci alle dodici: coloro che
arrivano dopo mezzanotte, non meritano di essere attesi particolarmente.
In un ballo grande, i padroni di casa, dopo la mezzanotte, specialmente,
non finiscono di occuparsi dei loro invitati: debbono restare in piedi, nei
saloni, passare di gruppo in gruppo, dire una parola alle persone solitarie,
fare delle presentazioni richieste, invitare qualche persona più autorevole, a
passare alla table à thé; […]. ‘In balls where they are neither sovereigns nor
princes of the blood, the hosts remain in the second antechamber at least
from ten to twelve: those who arrive after midnight do not deserve to be
particularly waited for. In a grand ball, the hosts, especially after midnight,
continue to take care of their guests: they must remain standing, in their
drawing-rooms, go from group to group, say a word to lonely people, make
the introductions that are solicited, invite distinguished guests to go to the
tea table’. (Gibus del Mattino 1900: 106, original emphasis)
Guests are treated to three types of refreshments, each with their

own timing:
Una delle cose più importanti, in una festa da ballo, è la questione del trat-
tamento. Perchè esso sia completo, lauto, sontuoso, deve constare di tre
parti: di rinfreschi, cioè gelati e gramolate, che si servono in giro, dai cam-
erieri e che, in un ballo, debbono apparire da due a tre volte: di una table à
thé, aperta dal principio del ballo: di una cena, che si apre solo verso le due
del mattino. ‘One of the most important things in a ball is the question of
refreshments. For them to be complete, lavish, sumptuous, they must con-
sist of three parts: light refreshments, that is, ice cream and sorbets, which
are carried around by the waiters and which, in a ball, must appear two to
three times; a tea table, open from the beginning of the ball; a supper,
which opens only around two in the morning.’ (Gibus del Mattino
1900: 108)
Proceedings end at dawn, for Serao this is six a.m. She expects her hosts
to be completely exhausted, if not, they have not done a proper job.
There is no leaving ritual: the French are told to filer à l’anglaise (Chambon
1907: 45 and 183); the British and the Americans must ‘take French
leave’ (How to Behave 1865/1852: 87; Roberts 1857: 90), leave discreetly,
without saying goodbye to the hosts.
Serao’s ball-room script adopts the point of view of the hosts, other
sources include scripts for young attendants, which focus on invitations
to dance. The main rule is: do not invite a lady to a dance if you have not
been introduced to her. However, it is understood that introductions can
be performed quickly, even after a dance, with a husband, parents, chap-
eron or hostess. The sources provide set lines for dance invitations and
replies (see below). Managing dance invitations is complicated, especially
220 A. Paternoster
with young dancers, who may be inexperienced. The consequences of

ball-room errors can be serious: blunders made by young girls who
double-book can occasion young men to feel offended. Parr provides an
example of a duel caused by a girl who accepted two young men for the
same dance, an occurrence she calls “une déplorable étourderie” ‘a regret-
table carelessness’ (1892: 91; for a similar warning see British The Habits
of Good Society 1859: 341). For Parr men should not persist and walk away.
Cross-cultural variation mainly regards the presence of public balls in
American and British sources and the chaperoning of young women. In
Britain and the US the young girl has more freedom to interact with
young men. Whilst on the European continent after a dance a young
woman must be brought back to her chaperon without delay, across the
Chanel (and the Pond) there is time for the couple to make a tour of the
room (only one though), and the dance partner can even accompany the
young lady to the refreshment room if she wishes so (True Politeness
1847: 40–41).
5.7 Script Lines

During a visit (see Sect. 5.4) both hostess and visitor were given lines to
say. Whereas the script is split into minute steps for non-verbal advice,
some language advice is scripted as lines. The lines are anchored to set
circumstances and are delivered as complete sentences. Sometimes a reply
is provided to form an adjacency pair. As the sources provide several turns
(up to three), this points to a high level of conventionalisation: not only
is the sentence itself fixed, it is also part of a fixed routine. Chapters on
letter-writing also contain set opening and closing formulae, and lengthy
advice on forms of address (see Chap. 7). Here my aim is to show the
presence of pre-negotiated sentences as part of a verbal routine.
Script lines tend to occur in two contexts: introductions and invita-
tions to dance. Both contexts involve talking to a stranger and maybe
etiquette provide lines to prevent shyness. The sources use the term ‘for-
mula’ as in the chapter The formula of introductions, where it is specified
that “the same form is always observed, ‘Let me introduce to you Mr. B.;’
or, ‘Mr. Jones, allow me to present to you Mr. Smith;’ or, ‘I have the
honor to present to you my intimate friend’” (Beadle’s Dime Book 1859:
20). Introductions can only be made when both parties agree to it, but in
case of a difference in rank, permission only needs to be asked from the
superior. A British source recommends this line to ask permission:
The person about to make the introduction would say to Mrs. A.—but not
in the hearing of Mrs. B.—“May I introduce Mrs. B. to you?” or some such
formula, according to the degree of intimacy existing between herself and
Mrs. A. (Manners and Tone 18802/1879: 41)
There is also a line for ascertaining if a man would like to be introduced

to a woman, in the context of the ball-room: “Would you like to be intro-
duced to Miss A.?” (Manners and Tone 18802/1879: 42).
Once desirability is ascertained, the literal form of the introduction
retains the need to ask for permission:
The ceremony is this: You say with a slight bow to the person you are
addressing, “Will your lordship permit me to introduce Mr. Dash?” or
“Mrs. Hyphen, will you allow me to introduce Mr. Colon to you?” (Modern
Etiquette 1887: 42)
However, many sources suggest simpler options. While it remains true

that the order in which introductions are made follows precedence—
introduce inferior to superior, men to women, unknown to famous,
younger to older (Stevens 1884: 7)—it becomes acceptable to only men-
tion the names. British Manners and Tone suggests: “‘Mrs. X.—Lady Z,’
thus mentioning the lady of the lowest rank first as she is the person
introduced to the lady of highest rank” (18802/1879: 44). For American
Maude Cooke, this “short and concise” usage is only indicated for busi-
ness introductions: “Mr. A., Mr. B.; Mr. B., Mr. A.” (1899/1896: 27).
Frances Stevens still mentions the longer and the short option, but indi-
cates that the shorter one is preferred when ladies are of the same social
standing:
222 A. Paternoster
In introducing you say: “Mrs. A., allow me to introduce to you Mr. B. Mr

B., Mrs. A.”
When the difference in social standing between two ladies introduced is
a debatable one, say, “Mrs. L., this is Mrs. M. Mrs. M., Mrs. L.”
(Stevens 1884: 7)
Possible follow-up lines are “I beg pardon, I did not hear the name” and
“I am very happy to make your acquaintance”, from a woman to another
woman (True Politeness 1847: 6 and 10)
Usage on the European continent is similar. French introductions fol-
low the order of precedence seen above and require set wordings, which,
as in English, encapsulate the request for permission (which should be
previously obtained):
Vous présentez d’abord la plus jeune, celle de position inférieure; l’homme,

si c’est à une dame que la présentation soit faite, en le nommant: Permettez-
moi de vous présenter Monsieur X***; puis ensuite vous nommez simplement
l’autre: Madame une Telle ou Monsieur un Tel. ‘You first introduce the
youngest person, the one in the lower position; the man, if it is to a lady
that the introduction is made, by naming him: Allow me to introduce to you
Mr. X ***; then you simply name the other one: Mrs. Dash or Mr. Hyphen.
(Pompeillan, la Marquise de 1898: 152)
French sources appear more reluctant to simplify: Chambon (1907: 316)

and Baronne d’Orval (19016: 127) still use the longer lines. Italian
sources, however, recommend simplicity:
Nel presentare, le formole troppo cerimoniose e lunghe per esempio:—

Permetta signora marchesa che abbia l’onore di presentarle il signore, ecc.—
vanno evitate. […] Le solite frasi: mi arreco a grande onore—o: sono ben
fortunato di fare la sua conoscenza—ed il ritornello: prego, anzi l’onore è il
mio ed altri simili complimenti—non sono da usarsi. ‘In making introduc-
tions, avoid too ceremonious and lengthy formulae, for example:—Allow
me, Madame la Marquise, the honour of introducing to you Mister etc.—[…]
The usual phrases: I consider it a great honour—or: I am really fortunate to
make your acquaintance—and the refrain: do not mention it, on the contrary,
the honour is all mine, and other similar compliments—are not to be used.’
(Bergando 1882/1881: 127–128)2
Bergando waives the three steps as being overly ceremonious: the line to
introduce, the line to show gratitude and the line to express a modest
denial of the compliment. Serao agrees. Using the set lines is “assoluta-
mente goffa” ‘absolutely awkward’, it is “disusata” ‘obsolete’ (Gibus del
Mattino 1900: 45). Jolanda recommends to only mention the names: “la
padrona di casa dice i nomi, semplicemente […]” ‘the hostess says the
names, without further ado’ (1909/1906: 249). The Dutch also simplify.
De Viroflay observes that introductions are made “zonder overbodige fra-
ses” ‘without superfluous phrases’ (Viroflay-Montrecourt, de 19194/1910:
21). Unfortunately, she adds, introductions are made so quickly that
“gewoonlijk 99% des slachtoffers na de ceremonie nog precies even wijs
als daarvóór en in volslagen onwetendheid verkeert omtrent den naam
van den ander” ‘usually 99% of the victims are just as wise after the cer-
emony as before and in utter ignorance of the other’s name’ (Viroflay-
Montrecourt, de 19194/1910: 22). The speed of enunciation shows the
conventionalised status of the formulae.
Like set phrases for introductions, invitations for a dance also tend to
become less elaborate, at least in English sources. The standard invitation
includes the word ‘honour’ as it is the woman who is being asked and it
is understood that a woman bestows honour on a man, as she is his supe-
rior: “When you are sure of a place in the dance, you go up to a lady and
ask her if she will do you the honour to dance with you” is the advice given
in British How to behave (1865/1852: 89) and its US counterpart (Roberts
1857: 92). However, also from the 1850s, The Habits of Good Society
pushes for more informal invitations, with the “set forms” given by the
proverbial dance master Turveydrop (already encountered in Sect. 5.3)
being seen as too formal for female acquaintances:
The set forms which Turveydrop would give for the invitation are too much
of the deportment school to be used in practice. If you know a young lady
2
To translate foreign terms of address, I use the titles prescribed in the chapter The Colloquial
Application of Titles and Precedency in Manners and Tone of Good Society (18802/1879: 54) regarding
the address of French nobility.
224 A. Paternoster
slightly, it is sufficient to say to her, “May I have the pleasure of dancing

this waltz, &c. with you?” or if intimately, “Will you dance, Miss A—?”
(The Habits of Good Society 1859: 341)
For Charlotte Eliza Humphry, writing at the very end of the century,
this simple phrase is the “usual” practice: “Will you give me this waltz?”
or “May I have this barn-dance?” (18972: 107). While UK- and
US-English forms tend towards simplification, French ones appear more
stable, as seen for introductions. The script in Chambon’s etiquette dic-
tionary includes the set invitation, with the warning to use honneur and
grâce instead of plaisir, followed by a set phrase for a refusal:
Le danseur s’incline courtoisement: “Madame, ou Mademoiselle, voulez-

vous me faire l’honneur de danser avec moi le prochain lancier?” On dit
honneur ou grâce, jamais plaisir.
L’invitée salue gracieusement. Si elle refuse, il lui faut motiver gentiment
son refus: “Je vous remercie, Monsieur, je suis invitée.” Ou bien: “Je suis un
peu fatiguée et ne danserai point cette fois-ci.” ‘The dancer bows courte-
ously: “Madam, or Miss, will you do me the honour of dancing with me
the next lancer?” Say honneur [honour] or grâce [favour], never plaisir
[pleasure]. The woman greets graciously. If she refuses, she must kindly
justify her refusal: “Thank you, Sir, I am invited.” Or else: “I am a little
tired and will not dance this time.”’ (Chambon 1907: 43–44)
A similar “formule” appears in Ermance Dufaux de La Jonchère:
La formule d’invitation est toujours à peu près la même. Le cavalier s’incline

devant la danseuse et lui dit: “Puis-je espérer, Madame, que vous voudrez
bien me faire l’honneur de m’accorder la prochaine valse?”
Celle-ci s’incline à son tour et lui répond: “Avec plaisir, Monsieur.” Mais
ces phrases sacramentelles sont plutôt murmurées que dites; l’on se com-
prend à demi-mot. ‘The invitation formula is always more or less the same.
The gentleman bows before the lady and says to her: “May I hope, Madam,
that you will do me the honour of granting me the next waltz?” She bows
in turn and replies: “With pleasure, sir.” But these sacramental phrases are
rather murmured than spoken; people understand each other tacitly.’
(Dufaux de La Jonchère 1878–18886: 265)
The phrases are so formulaic, “sacramentelles”, that it is enough to mum-

ble them, everybody knows what you are saying anyway. This Belgian
source repeats word for word the formula seen above: “Puis-je espérer,
mademoiselle, que vous voudrez bien me faire l’honneur de m’accorder ce
quadrille, ou cette mazurka, etc.” ‘May I hope, miss, that you will do me
the honour of granting me this quadrille, or this mazurka, etc.’ (O’Sidi,
Baron 1886/1884: 19). The acceptance line is also the same, but Baron
O’Sidi adds a line for a refusal: “Je regrette de devoir vous refuser, mon-
sieur, mais je…” ‘I regret having to refuse you, sir, but I…’ am already
engaged or tired: the justification is mandatory (O’Sidi, Baron 1886/1884:
19). Dutch de Viroflay-Montrecourt recommends the same pattern. The
invitation also contains the word eer ‘honour’: “Mevrouw (of juffrouw)
zou ik de eer mogen hebben U voor den volgenden dans te verzoeken?”
‘Madam (or Miss) may I have the honour of inviting you for the next
dance?’ (19194/1910: 54). The prospective dance-partner has the option
to refuse with this line: “Dank u, maar ik ben moe en blijf dezen dans
liever zitten.” ‘Thank you, but I am tired and I would rather stay seated
during this dance’ (19194/1910: 54). Italian sources do not include set
phrases for an invitation to dance.
In sum, set lines can stretch to three turns, and they are remarkably
consistent, not only within one linguaculture, but across the five lingua-
cultures under consideration. Some simplification is taking place, but
French lines appear more resistant to change.
5.8 Conclusion
This chapter focussed on the compulsory aspect of etiquette and set out
to demonstrate that etiquette books organise rules around recurring
social circumstances, which are seen as scripts containing steps and lines.
The scripted nature of etiquette is an important argument to link histori-
cal etiquette to the analytical concept of Discernment. My approach
builds on historical studies into Discernment, but I find it particularly
useful to also link my findings to the line of thinking pursued by Kádár
and Mills (2013), who consider Discernment a practice present in formal
settings of the contemporary West (see Chap. 8). Historical etiquette is
226 A. Paternoster
the bridge between historical and contemporary Discernment in Western

cultures.
The shortest tables of content in my self-built corpus have highlighted
the existence of three different kind of etiquette chapters: religious cere-
monies, recurring social circumstances and transferable networking skills.
Admittedly this distinction is artificial as each category displays charac-
teristics that are also present to some extent in the other two. All circum-
stances are scripted, but this aspect comes especially to the fore in the
recurring circumstances, which are structured as fixed sequences of tiny
steps. Under these conditions etiquette rules proliferate and this renders
etiquette particularly complicated. Sources reflect on complicatedness
with the terms ‘minutiae’, ‘trifles’. The scripted nature of etiquette has
also consequences from a metacognitive point of view: etiquette rules are
too complicated and too arbitrary to be inferred by means of personal
judgement, instead, they need to be memorised and retrieved at the right
moment, just like a play script or a dance routine. After highlighting the
metacognitive awareness of the nature of etiquette rules, the chapter
examined three scripted circumstances: visits, dinners and balls.
Interestingly, the scripts do not only regulate actions taking place in des-
ignated rooms, they also pay a lot of attention to transitions between
different rooms. There is awareness of the fact that entering a room puts
people in an exposed position, and that may be why it attracts specific
rules. Especially in the context of dining, processions are formed from the
drawing-room to the dining-room and back again. These processions are
ranked by precedence, a topic that will be at the centre of Chap. 7. Finally,
another argument in favour of the scripted nature of etiquette is that it
includes language advice cast as complete sentences or lines, which can
cover up to three dialogue turns.
My working definition of etiquette is updated with a mention of its
complicated scripted nature. The update is in italics:

young adults and the upwardly mobile are supposed to have acquired pre-
viously. Originating in court protocol, etiquette expresses close adherence
to social hierarchy and is organised in terms of recurring social (i.e., private
and institutional) circumstances such as visits, dinners, balls, court presen-
tations, for which it provides complicated, detailed scripts.
In sum, the scripted nature of etiquette circumstances has addressed

two elements in the definition of Discernment put forward by Ridealgh
and Jucker (2019: 59), who see Discernment as “situationally adequate
and quasi-mandatory”. The third element included by Ridealgh and
Jucker (2019), the central place taken up by adherence to rank, will be
discussed in Chap. 7. However, before addressing rank, it is useful to
further investigate etiquette as a conceptual nexus formed at the juncture
of its compulsory nature and its utter complicatedness. The combination
leads quite logically to a fear of making mistakes, especially in an eti-
quette learner, a young person or the more mature upwardly mobile. The
fear of blundering forms the topic of Chap. 6.
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W. Marshall & co.
228 A. Paternoster

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6
Blunders
6.1 Introduction
Etiquette sequencing sparks a potentially worrying chain of argumenta-
tion for the reader: circumstances are scripted into tiny steps with set lines,
ergo, there are innumerable rules, which cause etiquette to be particularly
complicated. Because of this complicatedness etiquette rules need to be
memorised and retrieved at the right moment. All this leaves considerable
room for error. Combine this increased risk with the highly compulsory
nature of etiquette, and the etiquette reader faces a real problem. As far as
I am aware, studies on Discernment have not looked into the emotional
impact generated by its quasi-mandatory nature. That may well be because
of the data: from a historical perspective, the inferior, subjected to rules of
deference, may be a social actor without access to writing or he/she may
consider it dangerous to write down criticism of the social order. From a
theoretical point of view, it is the analytical concept of ritual that helps to
anchor anxiety about potential mistakes in the field of politeness studies.
For Kádar and Mills (2013) Discernment concerns both conventions and
rituals. Like politeness conventions, rituals form recurrent and schematic
behaviour that is relationship-forging (Terkourafi and Kádár 2017: 173;
236 A. Paternoster
Kádár and House 2019). Two important differences with conventions are
the following: rituals have the mimetic nature of a performance, to be car-
ried out before an audience (Terkourafi and Kádár 2017: 171) and they
follow “sequencing rules” (Bax 2004: 164, 2010a, 2010b). The previous
chapter has illustrated that etiquette rules consist of scripts, to be per-
formed in well-defined circumstances. That the performances and their
scripts are closely related to specific times and places is another aspect that
links etiquette to ritual (Terkourafi and Kádár 2017: 172).
The current chapter works with another bundle of characteristics associ-
ated with rituals. As performances, rituals are aimed at a specific audience
and the actors need to be ratified performers (Terkourafi and Kádár 2017:
171). As a result, “non-ratified performance of a ritual tends to be sanc-
tioned” (Terkourafi and Kádár 2017: 172, in reference to Bell 1997). This
chapter zooms in on the risk of non-ratification and the fear this generates
in etiquette learners who are aware of the requirement to pass a ratification
test. For Terkourafi and Kádár, rituals can generate “intense emotions and
affect” (2017: 172). On the one hand, that etiquette includes positive emo-
tions linked to constructive social rituals, which forge acquaintances and
friendships, even marriages, is beyond doubt: the networking skills that
were touched upon in the previous chapter aim to establish rewarding
social ties. On the other hand, Section 6.2 is dedicated to the extensive
discourse on negative emotions that come into play with etiquette mis-
takes. As the social actor is hoping to enter in a specific network (Terkourafi
and Kádár 2017: 172), the audience judges the performer of the ritual as
someone who belongs or not. The ratification test sheds light on the gate-
keeping function of etiquette and its intrinsic liminal nature:
Liminality here means that once participation in the performance is

accepted the interactants enter into a specific interactional status, as they
are supposed to follow what is associated with the performance. (Terkourafi
and Kádár 2017: 179)
Liminality, a concept developed in anthropology by Arnold van Gennep

(1960/1909) and Victor Turner (1969), indicates “mental or relational
change” triggered by rituals (Kádár and House 2019: 2). Needless
to say, the religious ceremonies considered in etiquette books, from
6 Blunders 237
christenings to funerals, all share the profound liminal nature charac-

teristic of rites of passage. However, Section 6.3 will show that much
anxiety is generated by the entrance in society, which, physically, takes
the form of the first ever entrance in a room full of people, especially
during the ‘coming-out’ ceremony, when debutantes are under intense
scrutiny. In Chap. 5, it has become apparent that scripts dwell on tran-
sitions between rooms, probably because entering a room represents a
liminal moment, where the need for impression management increases
with the level of exposure.
Kádár (2013) suggests a typology of rituals, based on their transpar-
ency and accessibility. Etiquette is reasonably transparent: you can read
all about it in dedicated manuals, but its level of complicatedness remains
problematic once the reader is ‘in the field’. Accessibility creates two dif-
ferent groups of participants. A first group consists of young people.
Although they have grown up in the right social class, they may not have
been socialised into it as they were away at boarding school or confined
to the school room at the back of the house. Although etiquette rituals
are more accessible to these young people, they still form a source of con-
cern for both debutantes and debutants.1 A second group of newcomers
consists of the upwardly mobile. While, overall, etiquette books are spe-
cifically in the business of guiding ‘social climbers’ towards ratified mem-
bership of desirable, prestigious networks, so-called parvenus stay
unratified, despite best efforts to fit in. Section 6.4 discusses ‘parvenus’ as
the upwardly mobile who do not fully master the social rules of those
they would like to call their peers. They perform the social rituals in a
non-ratified way and are sanctioned by ridicule and ostracisation
(Terkourafi and Kádár 2017: 172). Ostentation and affectation count as
unratified behaviours: Section 6.5 discusses affectation in the context of
language blunders, while Sect. 6.6 talks about a destructive ritual aimed
at excluding undesirable individuals.
Recently, Andreas Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen have edited an innova-
tive volume with a focus on behaviour deviating from good manners, “in
particular blunders and other transgressions” (2020: vii). The volume
1
I include the masculine form given that it is young age that exposes young people to blunders,
whether male or female.
238 A. Paternoster
endeavours to “show how transgressions can serve as a versatile analytical

tool to reach a better understanding of norms at a particular period in
time and in a particular social and cultural context and people’s attitudes
towards these norms” (Taavitsainen and Jucker 2020: 19). Urszula
Kizelbach’s chapter deals with blunders and offers a first pragmatic defini-
tion: blunders are “accidental mistakes”, or more specifically, “speakers’
unwitting face-threatening acts (FTAs), which lead to some non-
intentional perlocutionary effects: a threat to face (e.g. offence), embar-
rassment, and humour” (Kizelbach 2020: 76). When blunders are
construed by the hearer as intentional, they amount to impoliteness
(Kizelbach 2020: 77). Her examples come from two Shakespearean char-
acters, Mistress Quickly and Falstaff. Whilst the former blunders because
she does not know the social rules, the latter is guilty of carelessness
(Paternoster 2022). In light of Kizelbach’s definition, it is probably safe to
say that etiquette books offer advice to counter the accidental, unwitting
aspect of blunders: readers need to know the rules because ignorance or
carelessness lead to embarrassment. The descriptions of blunders and of
embarrassment function, indeed, as a powerful incentive to read etiquette
books and memorise the rules. Finally, Section 6.7 looks into two other
strategies to prevent blunders: ease and tact. Whilst ease is seen as the
performance-based aristocratic concept of naturalness, tact is seen as an
intellectual capacity, which requires personal judgement to pinpoint the
correct course of action whenever rules are too vague. I make the case to
consider the term ‘tact’ as related to ‘discernment’, that is, as a
Discernment1 term, and that it is important to unravel the conceptual
link with Discernment as the second-order concept Discernment2.
6.2 Fear of Embarrassment

To what extent are blunders mentioned in the sources? What terms are
used and what feelings are associated with them? In the UK and US cor-
pus, the term ‘blunder’ gives some meaningful results with the Thesaurus
function in Sketch Engine. When querying the rather neutral term ‘error’,
‘blunder’ is high up in the ranking of potential synonyms: in the US
corpus, ‘error’, itself at 137 occurrences, has ‘blunder’ in third position,
6 Blunders 239
preceded by ‘fault’ and ‘mistake’; in the UK corpus, ‘error’, itself at 117

hits, has ‘blunder’ in tenth position, while top positions in the Thesaurus
list of ‘error’ are occupied by ‘fault’, ‘offence’, ‘mistake’ and ‘solecism’.
When talking about etiquette errors, blunder is a concept that is relevant
for authors writing in English. In other words, using Kizelbach’s defini-
tion (2020), in my two English language corpora, mistakes are often seen
as accidental, unwitting, unintentional. The French Thesaurus for erreur
‘error’, at 107 occurrences, gives tort ‘wrongdoing’, inconvénient ‘short-
coming’, impolitesse ‘impoliteness’, faute ‘error’, embarras ‘embarrass-
ment’. Maladresse ‘clumsiness, blunder’ occupies position no. seven. The
related term impair ‘blunder’ is infrequent with only nine occurrences. In
the Dutch sources fout ‘fault, mistake’ gives 88 occurrences and its
Thesaurus lists the term ongeluk ‘accident’ as the 6th term, but otherwise
there is no mention of a term for ‘blunder’ in the list of 50 items. For
‘blunder’ the Dutch sources use the term flater with a low frequency at
only nine occurrences. The Thesaurus of Italian errore ‘error’ (62 occur-
rences) gives colpa ‘fault’, ‘guilt’ and macchia ‘stain’, resp. in 1st and 3rd
position. The Italian Thesaurus for errore does not contain references to
blunders. Sbaglio ‘mistake’ returns only four hits. The corpus contains the
term sproposito ‘blunder’, with a frequency of 14. The Dutch and Italian
corpora are smaller and therefore the Thesaurus results have to be inter-
preted with extra care. However, in the bigger corpora for UK and US
English and for French, the concept of blunder figures high up in Thesauri
for ‘error’ and erreur.2
A qualitative analysis brings out the intense emotional ‘load’ of eti-
quette blunders. Borrowed from French, mauvaise honte has eight occur-
rences in the UK corpus (two in the US and zero in the French one). It
already appears in the first ever British etiquette source as the topic of the
very first paragraph:
The first thing necessary to be here noticed is,
2
In Frantext, French present-day gaffe only starts having real currency in the twentieth century,
occurring only in 26 texts in the nineteenth century. Italian gaffe is a French borrowing. According
to DiaCoris, the time slot 1861—1900 only gives one occurrence, directly related to French poli-
tics. The expression faux pas ‘blunder’ has one hit in the UK corpus with the meaning of marrying
the wrong person, and one hit in the French corpus in the literal meaning of stumbling during
a dance.
240 A. Paternoster
mauvaise honte.
Mauvaise Honte is that awkward bashfulness we perceive in young peo-
ple (and indeed in many old ones) when they appear in the presence of
those whom they conceive to be in a more exalted sphere of life than them-
selves. The French have distinguished this by the appellation of a wrong, or
ill-judged shamefacedness, which term we have adopted. (Trusler 1804: 3)
The adjective mauvais ‘wrong’ or ‘ill-judged’, as Trusler aptly translates,

indicates that the feeling is completely avoidable, that is, by knowing the
rules of etiquette. In this very successful British source, the risk of blun-
ders is mentioned in the title itself: Manners and Tone of Good Society: Or,
Solecisms to Be Avoided ([1880]2/[1879]). Etiquette solecisms are “to be
avoided” because they mark out the “intruder”:
A “solecism” may be perhaps in itself but a trifling matter, but in the eyes
of society at large it assumes proportions of a magnified aspect, and reflects
most disadvantageously upon the one by whom it is committed; the direct
inference being, that to commit a “solecism” argues the offender to be
unused to society, and consequently not on an equal footing with it. This
society resents, and it is not slow in making its disapproval felt by its
demeanour towards the intruder. (Manners and Tone of Good Society
[1880]2/[1879]: x)
The argumentation regarding the “inference” is both sharp and unforgiv-

ing: the blundering individual reveals that he or she is “unused” to soci-
ety; therefore, he or she can only be an intruder, an unratified participant,
facing resentment and the expression of disapproval. The minutiae seen
in Chap. 5 are no ‘trifles’. They have the power to ratify or withhold
membership: it is “trifles which do most to make social intercourse agree-
able, and a knowledge of which distinguishes the gentlewoman from the
parvenue” (Routledge and sons: [1875?]: 4). Etiquette, therefore, func-
tions as a social test. Section 5.5 has pointed out that dining etiquette is
the most difficult art of all. It is the “ultimate test of good breeding”
(Modern Etiquette 1887/[1871]: 137): “The rules to be observed at table
are numerous and minute, and none of them can be violated without
exposing the offenders to instant detection” (Modern Etiquette 1887/
[1871]: 137). Cora C. Klein uses the military term ‘muster’: “A man may
6 Blunders 241
pass muster by dressing well, and may sustain himself tolerably in conver-
sation; but, if he is not nearly perfect in table etiquette, dining will betray
him.” ([Klein] 1899: 86). Note that dress and conversation are also tests,
only dining etiquette is the decisive one, because it is so complicated.
Whoever does not pass the test of dining would “make himself exceed-
ingly ridiculous”, with ridicule being a stigmatising sign he/she does not
belong to the category of “well-bred people” (The Book of Fashionable Life
[1845]2: 73).
Since the stakes are high and the pitfalls numerous—a ‘trifling’ error
leads to social exclusion—the sources tend to elaborate on negative feel-
ings, ranging from shame to dread. Often this topic is discussed in the
prefatory material where it functions as a powerful incentive to read the
book and memorise its rules. Manners and Tone of Good Society helps to
avoid solecisms by providing “actual knowledge of what is customary in
society”, a “thorough acquaintance with the social observances in force”
([1880]2/[1879]: x). Charles William Day’s Hints on Etiquette and the
Usages of Society clearly states the book’s purpose of avoiding blunders: “If
these ‘hints’ save the blush but upon one cheek, or smooth the path in
‘society’ on only one honest family, the object of the author will be
attained.” (Day 18362/1834: 8, original emphasis). Therefore, buying an
etiquette book is a good investment. Even readers who avoid society
might occasionally have to dine in public when in a hotel or on board a
steamer, “a position in which ignorance of dining etiquette will be very
mortifying and the information contained in this section [= on dining]
be worth a hundred times the cost of the book” (How to Behave
[1865/1852]: 80-81). Note the superlative “very mortifying”.
Mortifications are at the heart of the following sentence:
[…] we have only to think of the mistakes, the heart-burnings and the
mortifications which are the experience of the unrefined and ill-mannered,
to see how valuable to society is a knowledge of the rules of decorum.
(Houghton et al. 18837/1882: 15)
The quote is part of a paragraph called Value to Society, which carries

through the economic language: the value of knowing etiquette (intended
as ‘buying an etiquette book’) is that it avoids mortification. Likewise, the
242 A. Paternoster
opening chapter The Value of Etiquette in Social Etiquette of New York,

attributed to Abby Buchanan Longstreet, states that ignoring etiquette
will cause “painful awkwardness” (18792: 7). Knowing etiquette, con-
versely, “prevents the agony of uncertainty, and sooths even when it can-
not cure the pains of blushing bashfulness” to the point that “if one is
certain of being correct, there is little to be anxious about” ([Longstreet]
18792: 8-9). In sum, “awkwardness is the twin-brother of embarrass-
ment, and they are never separated” ([Longstreet] 18792: 13). In this
initial chapter a few lines suffice to link ignorance of etiquette rules to
awkwardness, uncertainty, bashfulness, anxiety, embarrassment, which
are evaluated as causing blushing, pain, agony. French sources discuss
timidité ‘shyness’ and gêne ‘embarrassment’. This etiquette dictionary has
an entry timidité:
La timidité est une sorte de paralysie de l’esprit et du cœur, une gêne insur-
montable dans l’expression de ses sentiments, une répulsion invincible à se
produire dans le monde.
On n’a pas assez de pitié pour les timides dont la souffrance est réelle.
La timidité rend stupide une personne intelligente, la prive de tous ses
moyens, la rend gauche et ridicule. ‘Shyness is a kind of paralysis of mind
and heart, an insurmountable embarrassment in the expression of one’s
feelings, an invincible aversion of presenting oneself in the world. We do
not have enough pity for the timid, whose suffering is real. Shyness makes
a smart person stupid, it deprives him of all his means, makes him clumsy
and ridiculous.’ (Chambon 1907: 383)
Not only has shyness social consequences, it causes real (“réelle”) physical
suffering. Louise Stratenus describes the nerves of a hostess receiving an
unexpected visit. When the visitors arrive, they spot two “verschrikte
gezichten” ‘startled faces’ at the window, and in the drawing-room, all
occupants have “zulk een kleur” “are blushing so much” (Stratenus 1887:
5). This is what real suffering looks like:
Mevrouw zit te hijgen van inspanning om toch vooral geen enkele goede
manier uit het oog te verliezen, dikke zweetdroppelen paarlen op haar
voorhoofd ; ik heb dames gekend, die bij dergelijke gelegenheden zóo
zenuwachtig werden, dat haar keel van tijd tot tijd een klagend geluid uit-
6 Blunders 243
stiet, dat veel had van het gehuil van een schoothondje als men piano
speelt. ‘Madame [= the hostess] is panting with the effort if trying not to
lose sight of any good manners, thick pearls of sweat form on her forehead;
I have known ladies who, on such occasions, became so nervous that from
time to time their throat emitted a plaintive sound, much like the howl of
a lap-dog when one plays the piano.’ (Stratenus 1887: 6)
The poor hostess is not even an exception. Stratenus highlights the fact
that etiquette can upset people: “De vormen […] brengen […] de arme
zielen totaal van streek.” ‘The forms […] utterly upset the poor souls’
(Stratenus 1887: 6). The ‘poor souls’ are people for whom etiquette is
only “een zondagspakje”, their ‘Sunday best’, that is, not their habitual
outfit. In the end, the visitor ends up feeling guilty, conscious of causing
this “zwoegen en hijgen” ‘toiling and panting’ (Stratenus 1887: 6).
No wonder that the “pain of learning” the rules of etiquette “through
a long series of personal blunders, makes society an earthly purgatory to
a large class of mankind” (Court Etiquette [1849]: 203). Society etiquette
is full of “voetangels en klemmen” ‘caltrops and clamps’ (Viroflay-
Montrecourt, de 19194/[1910]: 59). No etiquette roses without thorns,
therefore, De Viroflay hopes “de moeilijkheden te effenen en de dorentjes
weg te nemen van de toch zoo geurige rozen in den hof van Mevrouw
Etikette” ‘to smooth the difficulties and remove the thorns from the yet
so fragrant roses in Madame Etiquette’s garden’ (19194/[1910]: 5).
Baronne d’Orval concludes her book with a lengthy chapter Les cas
épineux et délicats, ‘thorny and delicate issues’ (19016: 470-485).
This section brings out the strong contrast between etiquette and eti-
quette books. In Chap. 2 this contrast has emerged in the context of
gatekeeping: etiquette books want to help readers to get past the barriers;
members of the elite would rather keep them out. Here, that same con-
trast returns in only slightly different terms: etiquette books offer valu-
able advice to whoever needs to pass the ratification test of etiquette. The
latter is an obstacle, the former a solution. That etiquette manuals pro-
mote themselves as the solution to a problem may, of course, lead them
to exaggerate the problem, as an obvious selling argument.
244 A. Paternoster
6.3 Debutants and Debutantes

Exactly who do etiquette books cater for? The focus is not entirely on the
upwardly mobile (see Sect. 6.4). There are several other categories of eti-
quette novices: young people who enter society straight from school,
people who move house—from countryside to city (Learned 1906: 208)
or from one neighbourhood to another (Klickmann 1915: 1)—men who
have worked abroad, for example, in the colonies, and return after a long
absence—this is mentioned mainly in later books (Klickmann 1915: 29;
Viroflay-Montrecour, de 19194/[1910]: 5). The etiquette discourse about
young people and their entrance in society neatly marks the liminal char-
acter of etiquette rituals, especially when relating to the ‘coming-out’ cer-
emony of debutantes. In a monarchy, young women can also aspire to be
presented at court. Louise Stratenus offers a particularly vivid description
of the fear of the presentee. A seasoned novel-writer, she resorts to the
emotive rhetoric of evidentia or hypotyposis, the vivid description in the
present tense, which turns the reader into an eyewitness or a participant
of the events. The reader is absorbed in an inclusive ‘we’. We are approach-
ing the palace in our parents’ carriage and our heart beats ferociously:
“Bons! Bons! gaat ons hart” ‘Our heart goes boum! boum!’ (Stratenus
1887: 91). We arrive and “het ‘vreeselijke’ oogenblik is gekomen” ‘the
“dreadful” moment has come’ (Stratenus 1887: 91):
De grond dreigt onder uwe voeten weg te zinken, maar toch moet gij
vooruit. Gij verbeeldt u, trouwens zeer ten onrechte, dat aller oogen op u
alleen gevestigd zijn, en de indrukwekkende gestalte van de vrouw des
huizes schijnt u eene Medusa toe, die het bloed in uwe aderen zal doen
verstijven. ‘The ground threatens to sink beneath your feet, yet you must
go forward. You imagine, indeed very wrongly, that all eyes are riveted on
you alone, and the imposing figure of the lady of the house seems to you a
Medusa, who will stiffen the blood in your veins.’ (Stratenus 1887: 92)
With narrative verve Stratenus describes the young woman’s petrifying

fear of blundering (see also The Book of Fashionable Life [1845]2: 46 on
the “ordeal” of court presentation) and offers a remedy: eyes are not all
fixed on you alone!
6 Blunders 245
Kristen Richardson’s (2019) book on the debutante focusses on young

women, but men as well faced this rite of passage. Charlotte Eliza
Humphrey “always felt the greatest compassion for young men when first
introduced, after school and college life, to the routine of dinner, dance
and ball”, as she remembers her own “shyness”, a “miserable feeling of
confusion and gaucherie”, which she wants her book to prevent in others
(18972: 11). The same empathy shines through this passage in de Nogent,
who talks about a young man, a débutant, who for the first time puts on
his habit noir or black tailcoat:
Un jeune homme ne va dans le monde qu’après avoir terminé ses premières

études, et obtenu ses baccalauréats. Il est souvent bien jeune et voit venir
avec une certaine appréhension l’heure où il devra endosser son premier
habit noir. Ce vêtement, qui ne sied pas à tous les hommes, est assez diffi-
cile à porter; il faut pour y avoir l’air à l’aise, qu’il seye parfaitement à votre
personne ou que vous en ayez une grande habitude. C’est ce qui manque à
un débutant. ‘A young man does not enter the world until he has com-
pleted his first studies, and obtained his baccalaureate. He is often very
young and sees, with some trepidation, the time coming when he will have
to don his first black tailcoat. This garment, which does not suit all men, is
rather difficult to wear; to look comfortable in it, it needs to be the perfect
fit for you, or you have to be very used to it. This is lacking in a beginner.’
(Nogent, Mme de 1886: 163-164)
Here the ‘trepidation’ only regards an uncomfortable outfit, but usually it

regards all aspects of the entrance in society. Beadle’s Dime Book of Practical
Etiquette relates a first, disastrous visit, where a young man causes, at a
given moment, a “roar of laughter” when he sits on his hat (1859: 9) The
young man’s “entrée into society afforded a subject of laughter and com-
ment for weeks after the incidents” (Beadle’s Dime Book 1859: 8-9). The
two-page account goes from blunder to blunder, but the author sen-
tences: “Now this is no overwrought scene, but one which could easily
have happened to any bashful, awkward, disconcerted young person”
(Beadle’s Dime Book 1859: 9). Like Stratenus, when talking about the ter-
rified hostesses in Section 6.2, the author stresses that this is no excep-
tional case. The young man’s mistake? Not having “the right knowledge
246 A. Paternoster
of what was proper in company” (Beadle’s Dime Book 1859: 10). The
advice for young men is to enter society “by degrees” (Beadle’s Dime Book
1859: 10). This is, indeed, how young men usually entered society,
whereas to introduce young women, families organised a dedicated
‘coming-out’ ceremony. The English Gentlewoman; Or, a Practical Manual
for Young Ladies on Their Entrance in Society is a conduct book, but it
neatly explains the gendered difference in the parents’ approach. Sons go
off to university, where they are allowed to make mistakes. A daughter,
however, is deemed to go into society at 16. At 16, she “emerges from the
schoolroom” and her parents’ “expectations” are “raised to the highest
degree” (The English Gentlewoman 18492: 3). At 18, the young lady “is to
be exhibited to the world” (The English Gentlewoman 18492: 83). The
script, as usual, provides little steps on how to enter the drawing-room,
with the warning “in the agony of her introduction, to remember which
way she is going, to see that there are tables to be avoided, ottomans not
to be stumbled over, and to find out the lady of the house as the Ultima
Thule of her progress” (The English Gentlewoman 18492: 88-89; the blun-
dering young man of Beadle’s Dimebook repeatedly bumps into furni-
ture). When dinner is announced, the “Rubicon” is passed, and she is
“fairly launched as an independent and responsible member of society”
(The English Gentlewoman 18492: 92).
The previous chapter has shown that etiquette scripts pay remarkable
attention to entrances in rooms. In a paragraph dedicated to La timidité,
l’aplomb et l’aisance ‘Shyness, composure and ease’, Baronne d’Orval sin-
gles out entering and leaving a drawing-room as a cause for anxiety: “Pour
les uns, entrer dans un salon est un vrai supplice; en sortir à propos, une
souffrance plus grande encore.” ‘For some, entering a drawing-room is a
real punishment; to come out of it properly, an even greater suffering.’
(19016: 477). De Viroflay ask hostesses to have empathy towards debu-
tantes who make the difficult journey from the door into the salon. The
chapter is called Het maken van fouten ‘committing errors’:
Zoo kan bijvoorbeeld een gastvrouw, op wier jour een jong meisje haar
entrée de salon moet maken, zeer goed deze een paar schreden, of zelfs tot
aan de deur tegemoet gaan, als zij ziet dat de jonge dame nog niet over het
noodige aplomp beschikt, om dien moeilijken gang alléén te volbrengen.
6 Blunders 247
Zal zij zich niet de dagen herinneren, toen ook haar de kleur naar de wan-
gen steeg als zij alléén een kamer moest door loopen? Werkelijk, voor velen
is dit een ware straf. ‘Thus, for example, a hostess, on whose receiving-day
a young girl has to make her entrance into society, may very well take a few
steps forward to meet her, even all the way to the door, if she sees that the
young lady does not yet have the necessary composure to complete this
difficult journey alone. Won’t she remember the days when the colour rose
to her cheeks too when she had to walk alone through a room? Really, for
many this is a true punishment.’ (Viroflay-Montrecourt, de 19194/[1910]:
135; see also Learned 1906: 209).
The phrase ware straf ‘true punishment’ recalls d’Orval’s vrai supplice.
How to help the young woman pass this trying ritual? The sources,
indeed, feel the need to discuss remedies. The hostess can assist her.
Parents may choose to bring ‘out’ a daughter during an afternoon tea and
avoid giving a ball in her honour. Lucie Heaton Armstrong reminds her
readers that a first ball is “not always such a pleasurable experience, and a
young girl’s enjoyment is often a little damped by her natural timidity on
making her first appearance in society” (Armstrong 1903: 43). Overall,
American authors are most concerned with the debutante ritual, with 55
occurrences of the search string d*butant* in the US corpus (with twice
the masculine form ‘debutant’). The UK corpus has only five hits; the
French one has nine (where it is mainly masculine, referring to both gen-
ders). Maud Cooke includes a paragraph called Coming-out Parties:
These special festivities may take almost any form, so that the presentation
of the blushing débutante may be at a dinner, ball, reception, evening party
or afternoon tea; which latter custom has become very frequent of late.
[…] There is this in its favor, however; it relieves young girls from the strain
incident upon a large party or ball. (Cooke 1899/1896: 98)
Elsewhere, in the paragraph “Bringing out” a Debutante, instead of the

word ‘strain’ she uses the word ‘ordeal’:
The “bringing out” of a débutante at an afternoon tea has become, because

of its simplicity, a favorite method. It affords opportunity to invite a num-
248 A. Paternoster
ber of young “rosebuds” to cluster about her, and it does not subject the
“bud” to the ordeal of a ceremonious, or large, ball. (Cooke 1899/1896: 293)
The afternoon tea, it appears, provides safety in numbers against what

Emily Post calls “ordeal by ball” (19239/1922: 263), referring to witches’
trials. In their chapter The Débutante Marion Harland and Virginia Van
de Water (1905: 78-84) acknowledge the difficulties of a first year in
society; however, they add that the debutante is “prone to exaggerate the
importance of small social blunders, and trifles, light as air, occupy a dis-
proportionate place in her horizon” (1905: 83). This is the third remedy:
when socialising with people who are “somewhat older”, the youngster
will learn to be “less self-conscious, and this means to be happier and
more interesting” (Harland and Van de Water 1905: 84). Finally, for
Ellin Learned Craven, shyness and reservedness are “not necessarily
unbecoming”:
Shyness is not altogether something to be ashamed of. Far better is a mod-

est reserve and even a positive timidity than a pushing forwardness, aggres-
siveness, pertness, conceit and self-sufficiency. The self-admiring person,
with assurance and assumption, is less desirable in society than the bashful
youth or maiden. (Learned 1906: 211)
Shyness is seen as the opposite of “pushing forwardness”, and between

the two, shyness is preferred (see also The English Gentlewoman 18492:
91-92; The habits of Good Society [1859]: 38).
The remedies to counter shyness at ‘coming-out’ ceremonies are plenti-
ful: a hostess should be attentive; parents can use an afternoon tea instead
of a ball; young people should be less self-conscious and remind them-
selves of the fact that shyness is to be expected in a young person and, at
any rate, far better than its opposite, forwardness. The range of the rem-
edies indicates the extent of the problem.
6 Blunders 249
6.4 Parvenus
Whilst debutants and debutantes are born in ‘good society’ and simply
lack experience due to their young age, the question could not be more
different for the upwardly mobile. Parvenus, nouveaux riches ‘new rich’,
‘upstarts’ haunt etiquette books as the negative social type par excellence.3
The figure is talked about in every single subcorpus. Occurrences of the
search string ‘parvenu*’ are: 17 in the US corpus, 5 in the UK one, 10 in
the Dutch one, 25 in the French one and 1 in the Italian one. ‘Nouveau*
riche*’ occurs twice in the US corpus, 3 times in the UK one, but, curi-
ously, not in the French one, where, instead, I find enrichi ‘newly rich’ 4
times. The US corpus also has the term ‘climber’, at 1 hit, and ‘upstart’, 4
hits (1 in the UK corpus). Crucially, upward mobility per se is not seen as
problematic. A chapter that goes by the title of Mrs. Newlyrich makes the
following claim:
Our business is with the woman of worthy aspiration and innate refine-
ment, raised by a whirl of Fortune’s wheel from decent poverty to actual
wealth. She has a natural desire to mingle on equal terms with the better
sort of rich people. […] Of her social life it may be truly said that old
things have passed away and all things have become new. It would be phe-
nomenal if she fitted at once and easily into it. (Harland and Van de Water
1905: 233-4)
Mrs Newlyrich is no “ignoble parvenu” (Harland and Van de Water

1905: 230). Rather, she incarnates the notion of the transclasse ‘transclass’,
a term coined by the French philosopher Chantal Jaquet (2014) as a neu-
tral option to indicate people who move between social classes given that
parvenu is derogatory while ‘self-made man’ is heroic and too positive,
that is, potentially hiding many sacrifices (here I will use ‘upward
3
Parvenu has an interesting etymology. A borrowing from French, the noun is based on the past
participle of the verb parvenir ‘to attain, reach, achieve, succeed’. While the verb only has positive
connotations, the noun, first used at the beginning of the eighteenth century, only has a negative
connotation, see Trésor de la langue française, http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/advanced.
exe?8;s=1236699000, accessed 2.12.2021.
250 A. Paternoster
mobility’ and ‘transclass’ as neutral terms)4. Not every transclass is a ‘par-

venu’; vice versa, not every aristocrat is a gentleman:
An author has well said that there is no more common or absurd mistake
than supposing that because people are of high rank they cannot be vulgar;
or that if people be in an obscure station they cannot be well-bred. There
have been seen as many instances of vulgarity in a peer as could be found
in a grazier, and as many examples of a perfect freedom from the least taint
of it in persons in humble life as could be desired in a duchess. (Beeton
[1876c]: 47)
Or, as this French marchioness puts it, “n’oublions pas qu’il y a des par-
venus dans les plus vieilles familles” ‘let us not forget that there are parve-
nus in the oldest families’ (Pompeillan, La Marquise de 1898: 162). The
term ‘parvenu’ is specifically used to indicate the upwardly mobile who
do not fully adopt the social rules of those they would like to call their
peers. This issue links in with definitions of etiquette studied in Sect. 3.3
and its gatekeeping nature: etiquette offers protection against intruders
who do not abide by its rules. For Charles William Day etiquette is a
“barrier”, a “shield”, a “guard” against “the impertinent, the improper,
and the vulgar” (18362/1834: 11, for the full quote see Sect. 3.3, which
is identical in the American edition, Day 1843: 3). However, Day specifi-
cally reaches out to those who want the learn the rules, because, as he sees
it, in England upward mobility is common:
Besides, in a mercantile country like England, people are continually rising

in the world. Shopkeepers become merchants, and mechanics manufactur-
ers; with the possession of wealth they acquire a taste for the luxuries of life,
expensive furniture, gorgeous plate, and also numberless superfluities, with
the use of which they are only imperfectly acquainted. But although their
capacities for enjoyment increase, it rarely happens that the polish of their
manners keeps pace with the rapidity of their advancement: hence such
persons are often painfully reminded that wealth alone is insufficient to
protect them from the mortifications which a limited acquaintance with
4
As I hope to show in the next chapter, being ‘higher up’ comes with tangible social advantages, and
‘climbing’ reproduces exactly the idea that higher is better than lower.
6 Blunders 251
society entails upon the ambitious. (Day 18362/1834: 12-13; the American
edition reads “in a mercantile country like our own”, Day 1843: 4)
Note the recurring argument by which ignorance of manners will lead to

mortifications. Another British source explains how “in the present day,
the circles of good society are growing wider and wider, admitting repeat-
edly, and more than ever, men who have risen from the cottage or the
workshop” (The Habits of Good Society [1859]: 20). The anonymous
author explains the rise of the middle class into “good society” through
their connections with the gentry, who have an aristocratic network, but,
usually, no wealth (The Habits of Good Society [1859]: 55). However, it
was wealth that “could give the gentry a footing among the aristocracy”,
and “the rich merchant’s daughter who was married to a country gentle-
man soon succeeded in bringing her relations into his set” (The Habits of
Good Society [1859]: 55).
As seen previously, there is, unmistakeably, a tension field between
etiquette as an exclusivist practice and the democratisation advocated by
the sources. Sources, for example, report on tiny changes in etiquette
rules, by which the elite tries to move the goalpost. Baronne Staffe gives
the example of men’s gloves. As the price of gloves dropped, they became
more accessible and upper-class men reacted by going out without gloves.
(Staffe, Baronne 189125/1889: 336-7). For Lucie Heaton Armstrong
changes in visiting card rules are a test to detect the uninitiated:
[…] the fashions in visiting-cards alter slightly from year to year. Society
women introduce little changes from time to time—shibboleths by which
they may recognise the elect. (Armstrong 1903: 7)
In particular, two types of behaviours contribute to the ‘detection’ of the

‘parvenu’. Firstly, they despise their social inferiors, that is, their original
peers. According to William Charles Day:
The English are the most aristocratic democrats in the world; always
endeavouring to squeeze through the portals of rank and fashion, and then
252 A. Paternoster
slamming the door in the face of any unfortunate devil who may happen
to be behind them. (Day 18362/1834: 54; identical in Day 1843: 36)
Emily Post explicitly presents this ‘door-slamming’ behaviour as a “test”

to recognise the social climber:
One of the tests by which to distinguish between the woman of breeding

and the woman merely of wealth, is to notice the way she speaks to depen-
dents. […] When you see a woman in silks and sables and diamonds speak
to a little errand girl or a footman or a scullery maid as though they were
the dirt under her feet, you may be sure of one thing; she hasn’t come a very
long way from the ground herself. (Post 19239/1922: 510).
In fact, the advice is to treat servants respectfully. A Dutch source cites a

proverb that captures this type of arrogance, typical of the “opgeblazen
parvenu” ‘inflated parvenu’: “als niet komt tot iet, dan kent het zich zel-
ven niet.” ‘a parvenu often has attitude’, literally, ‘when nothing comes to
something, it does not recognise itself ’ (Handboek der wellevendheid
1855: 48).
Secondly, ‘parvenus’ display ostentatious behaviour. Examples abound.
Ostentatiousness can be noticed in a dinner, where an overabundance of
dishes can be interpreted as “parvenu prodigality” (Moore 18782: 132).
Mostly, the ‘parvenu’ can be recognised at his or her ostentatious dress
style. Dress etiquette is as meticulously codified as all the other aspects of
etiquette (Paternoster 2021) and it can therefore function as a social test:
“La bonne tenue sert à première vue à distinguer un homme du monde
du vulgaire parvenu.” ‘Good attire serves to distinguish at first glance a
man of the world from the vulgar upstart.’ (Pompeillan, La Marquise de,
1898: 160-161). The woman ‘upstart’ exaggerates:
Vulgar clothes are those which, no matter what the fashion of the moment
may be, are always too elaborate for the occasion; too exaggerated in style,
or have accessories out of proportion. […]
For example: A conspicuous evidence of bad style that has persisted
through numberless changes in fashion, is the over-dressed and the over-
trimmed head. (Post 19239/1922: 544)
6 Blunders 253
“Vulgar clothes” are characterised by ostentation: they are too elabo-

rate, too exaggerated, out of proportion, over-dressed, over-trimmed.
Post concludes: “Ostentation is always vulgar.” (19239/1922: 545).
Mostly, the discourse on ostentation focusses on jewels, as an obvious
display of wealth. A young bride, “riche héritière” (Parr 1892: 280), ‘rich
heiress’, pays a customary visite de noces ‘wedding visit’, wearing all her
jewels at the same time:
[…] madame Louise D… s’était crue obligée, pour […] faire une première
visite, de se couvrir de tous les joyaux et de toutes les splendeurs que con-
tenait sa corbeille ‘Madame Louise D … had felt obliged, in order […] to
make a first visit, to cover herself with all the jewels and all the splendours
contained in her wedding basket.’ (Parr 1892: 279)5
She is “absolument ridicule” ‘absolutely ridiculous’ (Parr 1892: 280).

Those who “load their fingers with rings, and their necks with chains” are
“not only exceedingly vulgar, but the excess is also liable to create a doubt
of their intrinsic worth” (Freeling 1837: 18). Likewise, The Book of
Fashionable Life decrees: “The vulgar alone hang themselves in chaines.”
([1845]2: 114).
At this point, the question arises: is the transclass showing off wealth,
or is he or she blundering? There is no consensus about this. For aristo-
cratic Rappard, the display of wealth is intentional:
[…] menigmaal wil de rijke parvenu door middel zijner kleeding zijn rijk-
dom aan de wereld bekend maken. Hij draagt opzichtige, opgeschikte kos-
tuums, een overmatig zwaren gouden horlogeketting, diamanten
hemdsknoopjes en zoo al meer, alle dingen, die een beschaafd, ontwikkeld
man vermijdt. ‘[…] often the rich parvenu wants to advertise his wealth to
the world by means of his attire. He wears ostentatious, gaudy suits, an
excessively heavy gold watchchain, diamond shirt buttons, and so on, all
things a civilised, educated man avoids.’ (Rappard, Jonkvrouw van
19123/1885: 57)
5
The family of the French and Italian bride provide the trousseau, but she is also given a basket
containing a selection of dresses, furs, lace and jewels by her future husband.
254 A. Paternoster
In an etiquette book for men, Conte Alfonso Bergando dedicates a

chapter to Usanze anti-signorili ‘anti-gentlemanlike manners’, where he
criticises the rich who pay too much attention “all’apparenza” ‘to appear-
ance’ and “al fasto chiassoso” ‘to gaudy pomposity’ (1882/1881: 179).
Others, however, retain that ‘parvenus’ are simply misguided. For
Caterina Pigorini-Beri, the parvenu “ostenta oro e gioielli, abiti vistosi”
‘flaunts gold and jewels, showy costumes’ (Pigorini Beri 19082/1893:
126). However, she admits, it is “difficile farne la spiegazione precisa”
‘hard to provide a precise explanation for it’ (19082/1893: 126). Being a
parvenu, she says, “è stato definito uno stato d’animo e di mente alquanto
grossolano, che non sa adattare le modalità dell’eleganza, e soverchia sem-
pre nell’espressione delle prammatiche e degli usi sociali” ‘has been
defined a rather crude state of mind and mood, which does not know
how to adapt to the modalities of elegance, and always overabounds in
the expression of etiquette rules and social customs’ (Pigorini Beri
19082/1893: 126). She appears to embrace the unintentional explana-
tion, of an individual incapable of getting it right, like this British source:
It is left for people out of the polite circle to dazzle the eyes of their friends
and bewilder their acquaintances by gorgeous attire; to flaunt in the street
in a dress only fit for a ballroom, to make themselves an animated fashion-
book, a milliner’s specimen, the
“Observed of all observers;”
and to do this under the idea that they are aping the manners of the
great. (A Manual of Etiquette for Ladies 1856: 12-3)
These women are blundering, because they are “under the idea” they are
copying the manners of the great. For the historian of nineteenth-century
bourgeois dress, Philippe Perrot, it is lack of confidence that causes the
upwardly mobile to overload their outfits (1994: 133). The ‘parvenu’
overdresses because he or she is afraid of not doing enough:
Tenez-vous en garde contre les excentricités. Les affectations de suprême

élégance sont autant à éviter que le manque de savoir-vivre. Pour fuir ce
dernier défaut, les nouveaux venus à la fortune tombent souvent dans
l’autre, c’est même une des marques auxquelles on les reconnaît. ‘Beware of
6 Blunders 255
eccentricities. Affectations of supreme elegance are as much to be avoided

as a lack of etiquette. To escape the latter shortcoming, newcomers to
fortune often fall into the former, it is even one of the signs by which they
are recognised.’ (Waddeville, Mme de 18877: 17)
The fear of underperforming brings the parvenu to commit the opposite

error: “Il est à craindre seulement qu’en voulant bien faire on ne fasse trop
bien; j’entends, qu’on tombe dans l’excès opposé” ‘It is only to be feared
that by wanting to do well one does too well; I mean, that one falls into
the opposite excess’, that is, “une affectation guindée” ‘an awkward affec-
tation”, which can only lead “au ridicule” ‘to ridicule’ (Boissieux, La
Comtesse de 1877: 28). Note that both French authors use the verb
tomber ‘to fall’: for them the excessive behaviour is unintentional, and a
blunder.
Whilst most sources link the ‘parvenu’ to an exaggerated sense of dress
and jewellery, one source stands out with a description of nothing less
than the ‘parvenu’ garden:
Il n’est pas rare de voir des personnes dans une modeste aisance qui veulent
singer le luxe des opulents du monde. Ils n’arrivent qu’à être ridicules. Un
bon bourgeois, qui possédait un jardin de quelques toises, eut l’idée de le
parsemer de bassins avec des groupes en grossière argile. Il plaça çà et là des
statues de plâtre, fit faire une mare de six pieds de long, qu’il appela pom-
peusement sa pièce d’eau, entoura le tout d’arbres et d’arbustes et se prom-
ena triomphalement dans son parc. Il croyait avoir égalé pour le moins le
célèbre Lenôtre et avoir transporté dans son domaine les jardins de
Versailles.
Tout doit être simple dans un petit jardin. ‘It is not uncommon to see
people of modest means who want to ape the luxury of the opulent of the
world. All they attain is ridicule. A valiant bourgeois, who owned a garden
of a few fathoms, had the idea of sprinkling
it with basins ornated with
groups in coarse clay. He placed plaster statues here and there; a puddle was
dug, six feet long, which he pompously called his pond; he surrounded it
with trees and shrubs, and wandered triumphantly round his park. He
believed he had at least equalled the famous Lenôtre and had transported
256 A. Paternoster
the gardens of Versailles to his domain. Everything should be simple in a

small garden.’ (Meilheurat, de 1852: 41)6
With this permanent landscaping blunder realised using cheap materials

such as clay and plaster instead of marble, the bourgeois was under the
impression—il croyait ‘he believed’—to have recreated Versailles, but all
he did was attract ridicule. Besides ostentation, the exaggerated display of
real wealth, the sources also condemn affectation, the use of cheap mate-
rials to fake wealth. They warn against the use of fakes when decorating
reception rooms, such as the “faux luxe” ‘fake luxury’ of “simili-bronze”
‘imitation bronze’ (Staffe, Baronne 189125/1889: 363). Pigorini Beri crit-
icises “finti arrazzi” ‘fake tapestries’ (19082/1893: 216) and “fiori finti”
‘fake flowers’ (19082/1893: 55). She comments:
Questo è un falso lusso di borghese indomenicato che fa ridere le persone di

buon gusto e che si intendono di vera eleganza e di vera distinzione e
soprattutto che amano i fiori veri, i quali sono la poesia della natura. ‘This
is the fake luxury typical of the bourgeois in his Sunday best, considered
hilarious by people of good taste, who are experts in true elegance and true
distinction and who above all love real flowers, the poetry of nature.’
(Pigorini Beri 19082/1893: 55, original emphasis)
We have already seen the image of the Sunday best in Stratenus, a smart
outfit that is uncomfortable because only worn once a week. This, then,
becomes a metaphor for the social intruder (see also Harland & Van de
Water 1905: 231). Note how borghese ‘bourgeois’ is used in a derogatory
meaning, just like sarcastic bon bourgeois ‘valiant bourgeois’ in De
Meilheurat.
In the end, the upwardly mobile need to achieve seamless fit to rules.
The behaviour of ‘parvenus’ does not fit, and this singles them out as
intruders for the gatekeeping purposes of etiquette.
6
André Le Nôtre (1613-1700), French landscape architect who designed the gardens of Versailles.
6 Blunders 257
6.5 Language Blunders

Certain language mistakes tend to be portrayed as typical ‘upstart’ errors,
and therefore as linguistic blunders. The reasons why these mistakes are
considered blunders are the same as seen above: language mistakes reveal
that the speaker does not interact with ‘good’ society. Emily Post explains
it neatly:
People of the fashionable world invariably use certain expressions and

instinctively avoid others; therefore when a stranger uses an “avoided” one
he proclaims that he “does not belong” […]. (Post 19239/1922: 58)
Correct language use is seen as yet another test affording ratification into
the “fashionable” set. Etiquette books, indeed, condemn a kind of lan-
guage error that closely resembles the ostentation of dress and jewels. Post
criticises lack of grammar in speakers who “had little education in their
youth”; however, this error can be pardoned (Post 19239/1922: 59).
Unpardonable, instead, is affectation in language use:
But the caricature “lady” with the comic picture “society manner” who says
“Pardon me” and talks of “retiring,” and “residing,” and “desiring,” and
“being acquainted with,” and “attending” this and that with “her escort,”
and curls her little finger over the handle of her teacup, and prates of “cul-
ture,” does not belong to Best Society, and never will! (Post 19239/1922: 59,
original emphasis)
This is the “offense of pretentiousness” (Post 19239/1922: 59). These

are hypercorrections, examples of over-elaborate vocabulary, which make
up a two-page list of language errors (Post 1923/1922: 60-61).
Scholars on prescriptivism such as Beal (2009), Busse (2015), Tieken-
Boon van Ostade (2010, 2019), Straaijer (2018) and Dossena (2019b)
have investigated usage guides in Late Modern times, when the fight
against vulgarisms occupies a prominent space within a pervasive push
for education (Dossena 2019b: 31 on American and Scottish late modern
usage guides). There is an interesting overlap with etiquette books. On
the one hand, many etiquette sources regulate language usage in the
258 A. Paternoster
contest of conversation (avoid proverbs, Latin and Greek quotes, puns,

slang…); some even include extensive lists of language errors. Conduct
books list Locutions qu’on doit éviter dans le monde ‘phrases to avoid in
society’ (Boitard 1851: 149-156) and similar lists occur in etiquette
books: the Comtesse de Magallon discusses locutions et accents ‘phrases
and accents’ (1910: 17-19); Ellin Learned Craven dedicates a chapter to
Good Form and the Reverse in Speech, with the advice to avoid slang, pro-
vincialisms, grammatical errors, mispronunciation of French words and
word choice inspired by affectation (1906: 212-215). On the other hand,
Dossena reports that usage guides promote etiquette books as companion
volumes (2019b: 35). Whilst usage guides see vulgarisms as caused by a
lack of education or by frequentation of uneducated peers, some errors
are down to affectation (Dossena 2019b: 36). As seen in the previous sec-
tion, ‘parvenus’ overdo it, out of fear of not doing enough. Like the terms
listed by Post, the following language errors are hypercorrections or
“vulgar-genteel errors” (Dossena 2019b: 35).
A recurring error is the use of inflated titles when mentioning family
members. Instead of simply calling his or her daughter ‘my daughter’, the
‘upstart’ tries to give him- or herself importance by using more for-
mal titles:
In talking of your own children, never speak of them as “Master William,”

or “Miss Jane;” “Mr. Henry,” or “Miss Louisa:” it is a miserable attempt to
elevate both them and yourself, which will assuredly fail, as it is practised
by those only who have recently risen above that dingy mass of medioc-
rity—the “multitude”; […] this is an important caution, as it is generally
the first error committed by the “nouveaux riches”. (Day 1843: 31; original
emphasis, but absent from Day 18362/1834)
Cathérine Parr links the same error to the pretentiousness quoted by Post.
Two bystanders comment:
— Pourquoi souriez-vous? dis-je à Mme Balmier.

— Avez-vous remarqué l’expression dont s’est servi ce monsieur en par-
lant de Thérèse à ma sœur?
— Oui, il a dit votre demoiselle.
6 Blunders 259
— Eh bien, cette façon de parler annonce la prétention et la vulgarité les

plus complètes; elle n’est employée que par les personnes manquant du
plus élémentaire savoir-vivre. Celles qui ont l’habitude du monde savent
que la simplicité dans les paroles et dans les actions dénote la distinction et
l’intelligence. ‘—Why are you smiling? I said to Mrs. Balmier.—Did you
notice the expression used by this gentleman when talking about Thérèse
to my sister?—Yes, he said votre demoiselle [your young lady].—Well, this
way of speaking announces the most complete pretentiousness and vulgar-
ity; it is only used by people who lack the most basic etiquette. Those who
are used to society know that simplicity in words and actions denotes dis-
tinction and intelligence.’ (Parr 1892: 101)
Likewise, fashionable couples use the terms ma femme ‘my wife’ and mon
mari ‘my husband’ instead of the pompous mon épouse/époux, ‘my spouse’,
“mots recherchés ou prétentieux” ‘artificial or pretentious words’, which
cover in ridicule whoever uses them (Parr 1892: 101). For Alfred de
Meilheurat the term époux is used by “boutiquiers” ‘shopkeepers’, that is,
members of the petty bourgeoisie who imagine “de donner des leçons aux
dames du faubourg Saint-Germain, qui disent tout bonnement ma fille”
‘lecturing the ladies of the Saint-Germain district, who simply say ma fille
[my daughter]’ (1852 : 115).7 Emilia Nevers gives identical advice for
Italian, which she justifies with the French usage: “In francese chi dicesse:
mon époux, mon épouse, ma demoiselle, si farebbe burlare” ‘Whoever would
say mon époux, mon épouse, ma demoiselle in French, would be made fun
of ’ (1883: 64).8 Bruck-Auffenberg calls this usage “kleinburgerlijk”,
‘petty, typical of the petty bourgeoisie’ (1900/1897: 86).
A third language blunder linked to the previous one is the overly fre-
quent use of titles in a conversation. Even with royalty this is the case:
[…] especial care must be taken not to harp too often upon the phrases
“Your Majesty” and “Your Royal Highness.” Once or twice such an expres-
sion may be used, not oftener—the rest of the discourse must be managed
with the word “ Sir” or “Madam”. Few blunders will be more characteristic
7
The faubourg Saint-Germain is a Paris neighbourhood frequented by the high nobility since the
eighteenth century.
8
Nevers has translated several novels by Émile Zola into Italian.
260 A. Paternoster
of low breeding than an eternal use of the words “No, your Royal Highness,”
“Yes, your Royal Highness.” Such expressions are only to be found in the
mouths of servants and tradespeople. (Court Etiquette [1849]: 34-5)
As above, it is the “excessive use of titles when conversing with people of

rank” that “exposes ignorance of the habits of good society” ([Cheadle]
1872: 37-8). Bruck-Auffenberg denounces this “titelzucht” ‘titlemania’
(1900/1897: 86).
Finally, French sources guard against the use of the term bouilli ‘boiled
beef ’. This ban recurs in no less than 13 sources, which recommend the
term bœuf ‘beef ’ instead. Other banned terms are vollaile ‘poultry’ (say
poulet ‘chicken’), Bourgogne and Champagne (say vin de Bourgogne, vin de
Champagne, ‘Bourgogne wine’, ‘Champagne wine’). These are, in fact,
“locutions bourgeoises” ‘bourgeois phrases’ according to Breton de la
Martinière (1808: 65), who also uses the term bourgeois in a derogatory
way. Indeed, “on est ridicule” ‘one is ridiculous’ when using them, accord-
ing to Mme Celnart (18346/1832: 258). Even a Dutch source reports
this error:
Vraag nooit om bouilli, om gevogelte, bordeaux of champagne; zoo spreekt

men slechts in logementen van den tweeden of minderen rang; aan fats-
oenlijke tafels zegt men ossenvleesch, kip, duif of kalkoen, Bordeaux-wijn,
Champagne-wijn. ‘Never ask for bouilli, gevogelte [poultry], bordeaux or
champagne; this is the way people speak in lodgings of the second or lesser
rank; at decent tables people say ossenvleesch, kip, duif or kalkoen, Bordeaux-
wijn, Champagne-wijn [beef, chicken, pigeon or turkey, Bordeaux-wine,
Champagne-wine].’ (Handboek der wellevendheid 1855: 30)
As before, a certain language use (here specific culinary terms) point to

lower social origin, although here the mechanism is not that of
hypercorrection.
6 Blunders 261
6.6 Destructive Rituals

Once undesirable individuals are recognised by the social arbiters, is there
a recurring, schematic practice to exclude them from interaction? So far,
the sources have often mentioned ridiculing, but this is not discussed as
a schematic social practice. The hopelessly blundering young man in
Beadle’s Dime Book (1859) is sent off with a “roar of laughter” and he is
the butt of “laughter and comment for weeks”. However, do the sources
document actual destructive rituals? The answer is affirmative. The so-
called cut is an example of what Kádár calls “destructive relational ritu-
als”, rituals stigmatising people and destroying their relationship with the
group (2013: 135), such as ritual bullying. The ‘cut’ is part of street eti-
quette and consists of staring at a person who has previously been intro-
duced, instead of greeting him (in all the examples the victim is male).
These undesirable individuals somehow have managed to intrude and
now they have to be excluded.
When greeting in Britain and in the United States, a recent acquain-
tance needs to be confirmed by the higher in rank (or the woman, or the
older of the two), who has the right to ‘recognise’ the inferior: “Good
usage has given the lady the privilege of determining whether she will
recognize a gentleman after the introduction. It is, therefore, her place to
make the recognition first by a slight bow.” (Houghton et al. 18837/1882:
68). When a lady ‘cuts’ this recognition is not forthcoming:
The “cut” is given by a continued stare at a person. This can only be justi-
fied at all by extraordinary and notoriously bad conduct on the part of the
one “cut”, and it is very seldom called for. Should any one desire to avoid a
bowing acquaintance with another, it may be done by turning aside or
dropping the eyes. (Houghton et al. 18837/1882: 68-9)
The ‘cut’ also appears in British sources. The Habits of Good Society dis-
cusses ‘cutting’ at length ([1859]: 276-280):
A girl has no other means of escaping from the familiarity of a pushing and
thick-skinned man. She cannot always be certain that the people intro-
duced to her are gentlemen; pleased with them at first, she gives them some
262 A. Paternoster
encouragement, till some occasion or other lays bare the true character of
her new acquaintance. What is she to do? […] She has nothing left but to
cut him dead. (The Habits of Good Society [1859]: 278)
However, the author warns that this should be “positively the last
resource” as there are “many ways, less offensive and more dignified, of
showing that you do not wish for intimacy”, such as a “stiff bow without
a smile” (The Habits of Good Society [1859]: 278-9), echoing Houghton
et alii’s advice the lady turn aside or drop her eyes. Erving Goffman
describes the cut as a “great taboo” (1963: 114).
The practice of ‘recognising’ originates in two other rules. Firstly, cer-
tain introductions are seen as provisional, especially those made between
dance-partners at a ball. Some acquaintances, indeed, cease with the
activity in which they take place, for example, balls, walks, trips with
public transport, stays at resorts. These types of introductions do not
automatically lead to a recognition: “An introduction given on the street
needs no after recognition.” (Cooke 1899/1896: 29). The following
quote refers to ball-room introductions as an acquaintance struck up only
for the duration of the ball:
These ball-room introductions are not regarded as introductions for a more

extended acquaintance than for the evening. Should the parties afterward
meet upon the street or elsewhere, let the gentleman be careful not to pre-
sume upon any recognition of the lady until she has first bowed. If she fails
to extend this recognition, let the gentleman take no umbrage, for he has
no real claim upon her acquaintance merely from a public ball-room intro-
duction. (Beadle’s Dime Book 1859: 31, original emphasis; similar in
Etiquette for the Ladies 183816/1837: 49; Modern Etiquette in Public and in
Private 1887/[1871]: 30)
With provisional introductions an acquaintance needs to be confirmed at

the first opportunity. Secondly, in Britain and the United States, the
superior has the right to initiate a greeting, and by extension, a woman
greets a man, an older person a younger one. In the street:
It is proper that the lady should first recognize the gentleman. There has
been some dispute on this point of etiquette, but we think there can be no
6 Blunders 263
question of the propriety of the first recognition coming from the lady. A
gentleman will never fail to bow in return to a lady, even if he may feel
coldly disposed toward her; but a lady may not feel at liberty to return a
gentleman’s bow, which places him in a rather unpleasant position. A lady
should give the first smile or bow, is the rule now recognized. (Beadle’s
Dime Book 1859: 45, original emphasis)
Given that the man is greeted by the woman, the woman has the power
not to recognise the man and withhold a greeting. If she averts her eyes,
the man realises the acquaintance has come to an end. The books com-
monly recommend ignoring the man as common practice to exclude him
from further interaction. Therefore the ‘cut’, applied by overtly staring at
someone, is considered rude: “After any introduction […] never give the
cut direct save for very good cause. It is too often an uncalled-for insult.”
(Cooke 1899/1896: 30). Indeed, the author of The Habits of Good Society
strongly criticises the ‘cut’ with emphatic rhetoric and sarcasm:
Lastly, let us suppose that you want to “cut” your acquaintance. O fie! Who
invented the cut? What demon put it into the head of man or woman to
give this mute token of contempt or hatred? I do not know, but I do know
that in modern civilised life, as it goes, the cut is a great institution. The
finest specimen of it which we have on record is that of Beau Brummell
and George IV. (The Habits of Good Society [1859]: 276)
The text goes on to the narrate the anecdote, in order to conclude: “But
my advice to anybody who wishes to cut an acquaintance is, most
emphatically, Don’t.” (The Habits of Good Society [1859]: 277). In sum,
there exist two destructive rituals to ending an acquaintance: ignoring the
man, which causes least disruption as it is part and parcel of the social
expectancies, and the ‘cut’, which is only acceptable in extreme cases and
rude in any other case.
The presence of the ‘cutting’ ritual represents a significant cross-cultural
difference. Wouters (2007: 128-30) points out that snubbing is far more
developed in British than in American sources, and, at any rate, inexis-
tent in German and Dutch sources. My self-built corpus gives the
264 A. Paternoster
following results. In the US corpus, in only three instances does the

phrase ‘the cut’ refers to the ritual whilst ‘cutting’ gives four results in this
meaning; in the UK corpus the phrase ‘the cut’ occurs ten times, but all
in the same source, The Habits of Good Society, except one, while the term
‘cutting’ appears seven times. Although the numbers are small (7 vs. 17),
they tend to confirm Wouters’ hypothesis. The Dutch, French and Italian
sources do, indeed, not include this disruptive ritual. This is because on a
street of the European mainland it is compulsory for the inferior to greet
first: “Un inférieur salue le premier son supérieur, qui lui rendra poliment
son salut.” ‘An inferior greets his superior first, who will politely return
his greeting.’ (Nogent, Mme de 1886: 66). Therefore, a man has the duty
to initiate a greeting to a woman. Comtesse Drohojowska is adamant.
Addressing her female reader, she decrees “vous ne saluerez pas la pre-
mière” ‘you will not be the first to greet’ (18787: 90). As a result, the
woman has no way of avoiding a greeting: once greeted, she must
greet back.
The Chanel forms a street etiquette border, separating British and
American from continental practices. However, one French source does
invest women with the right to ignore men:
Quand, dans la rue, une femme rencontre, pour la première fois, un

homme qui lui a été présenté, elle doit, par une légère inclinaison de la tête,
faire pour comprendre qu’elle sait qui il est et qu’elle agréera son salut; cette
sorte de permission octroyée, c’est à l’homme à prendre ensuite l’initiative.
‘When, in the street, a woman meets, for the first time, a man who has
been introduced to her, she must, by a slight tilt of the head, make him
understand that she knows who he is and that she will approve his greeting;
after this kind of permission is granted, it is up to the man to then take the
initiative.’ (Orval, Baronne d’ 19016: 117)
Authors unmistakeably have a metapragmatic awareness of cross-cultural

differences. On the European mainland some authors even endorse the
Anglo-American usage, because they feel it gives women more freedom.
Anna Vertua Gentile prefers the foreign practice:
6 Blunders 265
Questo nostro uso, che gli uomini debbono salutare per i primi le signore,
a me pare un abuso di libertà. O non dovrebbero essere le donne le prime
a salutare invitando quasi l’uomo a rispondere?… ‘This custom of ours,
that men must greet the ladies first, appears to me an abuse of freedom. Or
shouldn’t the women be the first to greet, almost inviting the man to
answer?…’ (Vertua Gentile 1897: 163)
Mantea also defends the American usage, which, she says, has started to
spread into Italy:
Per la strada [il giovanotto] si toglie il cappello quando incontra una signora
che conosce; (in America è la donna che saluta la prima, e l’uso va intro-
ducendosi anche da noi ed incontra tutte le mie simpatie, ché mi pare
giusto essa abbia il diritto di mostrare che le sarà grato di essere osservata).
‘On the street [a young man] takes off his hat when he meets a lady he
knows; (in America it is the woman who greets first, and the custom is also
introducing itself to us and meets all my sympathies, because it appears fair
to me she has the right to show that she will be pleased to be noticed)’.
(Mantea 1897: 40)
For women to be able to end an acquaintance by ignoring a man is seen

by continental authors as empowering.
6.7 Ease and Tact

As the risk of blundering is high for the upwardly mobile as well as for
young people, the sources suggest various remedies. So far, we have seen
that, first and foremost, the reader has to memorise the rules of etiquette.
Furthermore, readers can try to be less self-conscious and find some com-
fort in the fact that it is always better to be shy than forward; older people
must be indulgent and show empathy. Despite the remedies, the reader
seems caught in a vicious circle: in order to prevent anxiety, etiquette
books cover every single eventuality by dictating minute rules whose
sheer volume make etiquette complicated; however, it is precisely the
complicatedness of etiquette that causes anxiety. I call this the catch-22 of
266 A. Paternoster
etiquette, which is linked to the paradoxical nature of etiquette noted in

Chap. 2, which is both enabling and exclusivist.
It is in the context of ‘unease’ that sources bring up the notion of ‘ease’.
Ease has 179 hits in the UK corpus, 157 in the US corpus, but it is harder
to pinpoint in the other subcorpora as it has many synonyms like naturel,
nonchalance, désinvolture, facilità, gemak… ‘Ease’ and its synonyms art-
lessness, naturalness, effortlessness indicate the conscious effort of hiding
effort. The art of becoming a woman “comme il faut”, a well-bred woman,
is “eene moeielijke kunst, die echter ten slotte tot een tweede natuur
wordt”, a ‘difficult art, which eventually, however, becomes second nature’
(Bruck-Auffenberg 1900/1897: 5). How does it become second nature?
Memorising the rules is not enough, the reader needs to practise:
[…] niet enkel geleerd ook geoefend willen goede manieren zijn. Het is een
bekend feit, hoe spoedig men op het land “verboert”—zooals de meest
ervaren dame na een langdurigen tijd van afzondering zich onbehaaglijk en
bijna verlegen gevoelt bij de eerste schrede, die terugvoert in de wereld.
Het eenige middel beschaafde manieren zonder affectatie te verkrijgen,
ze in vleesch en bloed te laten overgaan is, dat men zich zelf geen moment
vergeet, en tehuis, tegenover zijne familie en dienstboden zich juist zoo
gedraagt als in gezelschap. Dan eerst kan men zich ook in gezelschap als
tehuis gedragen […]. ‘[…] good manners not only need to be learned, they
also need practice. It is a well-known fact how soon one “becomes a peas-
ant” in the countryside, like the most experienced lady, who, after a long
period of seclusion, feels uneasy and almost embarrassed at the first step
leading her back into the world. The only means of attaining civilised man-
ners without affectation, of transforming them into flesh and blood, is that
one does not forget oneself for a moment, and that, at home, to one’s fam-
ily and servants, one behaves just as in company. Only then can one also
behave in company as at home.’ (Bruck-Auffenberg 1900/1897: 95-6)
Etiquette practice starts at home, only later can it move into society.
Etiquette rules first have to be consciously retrieved from memory, but
later this becomes a habit: “Though irksome at first, these trifles soon
cease to be matters for memory, and become things of mere habit. To the
thoroughly well-bred, they are a second nature.” (Routledge and Sons
6 Blunders 267
[1875?]: 4 and 39). That etiquette rules becoming second nature through
repetition also surfaces in Pigorini Beri: women have to make sure “con
ogni diligenza” ‘with every diligence’ that “le formalità e le prammatiche
della vita elegante e gentile diventino un’abitudine così che vengano
spontanee, come nate con noi stessi” ‘the formalities and protocols of
elegant and genteel life become a habit, so as to become spontaneous, as
if born with ourselves’ (1908/1893: 125). Note the paradox. Make every
effort to appear without effort: a true gentleman “is to be perfectly com-
posed and at his ease”, that is, he is to “perform all the ceremonies, yet in
the style of one who performs no ceremony at all”, going “through all the
complicated duties of the scene, as if he were ‘to the manner born’”
(Etiquette for Gentlemen 1838: 36, original emphasis), a wordplay on
‘manor’. Etiquette has to become second nature, spontaneous, innate,
but this is all pretence, it is a performance (note the use of ‘as if ’ in the
last quote). To become a gentleman “it is necessary not only to exert the
highest degree of art, but to attain also that higher accomplishment of
concealing art” (The Laws of Etiquette 18362: 133). Conversely, ‘parvenus’
behave in a way “da lasciar credere che non siano punto nati per fare i
signori” ‘that makes you believe they are not at all born to be gentlemen’
(Bergando, il conte 1882/1881: 177). In other words, they fail in making
the scripted performance look innate.
Effortlessness goes back to the Italian Renaissance notion of sprezza-
tura. In 1528, Baldassare Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano introduces the
neologism sprezzatura, ‘effortlessness’, ‘nonchalance’, ‘disinvolture’, to
capture the art of naturalness. Rooted in the rhetorical figure of dissimu-
lation—Castiglione is a reader of Cicero and Quintilian—it is meant to
dissemble one’s efforts and to avoid affectation, which for Castiglione is
the opposite of sprezzatura (Paternoster 2020). In the early sixteenth-
century context, where courtiers started to compete with non-aristocrats,
sprezzatura needed to persuade rulers as well as peers of one’s innate
nobility (Whigham 1984). In the nineteenth century, a similar strategy is
still recommended. Membership to high society is granted to social actors
who are able to perform the rituals of etiquette as if they were born within
this class (and their ‘manors’). The concept of ease reclaims the pro-
foundly aristocratic notion of birth right. Ease is performance-orientated
and neatly ties in with the idea that etiquette rules are configurated as
268 A. Paternoster
scripts and lines. The perfect actor makes the ratifying audience forget
that he or she is acting out a script (see Curtin 1981: 120-126 on ease as
the “aroma of aristocracy”, original emphasis). Importantly, the discourse
on ease reinforces Morgan’s (1994) argument that courtiers and the
socially mobile middle-class members are similar in that they are per-
formers in search of public approbation (see Sect. 2.3).
While ease has to do with a pre-emptive practice, to prevent difficul-
ties, tact is an intellectual capacity, called upon when a difficulty is actu-
ally encountered, usually a delicate situation in which the right course of
action is unclear. In a rare philosophical contribution on tact, David
Heyd (1995) describes two fundamental aspects. Tact, firstly, “consists of
sensitivity to the contextual and unique situation at hand” (Heyd 1995:
222). This cognitive aspect of tact is related to judgement and prudence.
Secondly, tact has an emotional component, which links it to empathy,
“typically other-regarding, its whole purpose being to save another from
embarrassment or pain” (Heyd 1995:225). ‘Tact’ has 63 hits in the UK
corpus, 99 in the US corpus, 278 in the French corpus. Tact and its spell-
ing variant takt have together 69 hits in the Dutch corpus. Finally, Italian
tatto appears 66 times. This notion is productive all over the corpus.
Sources see “fine tact” as “the discerning of delicate distinctions and
shades of meaning in words and expressions” (Learned 1906: 212).
According to Marguérite de Viroflay, tact is “moeilijk te omschrijven”
‘hard to describe’, but a tactful person knows what to do and say “in
moeilijke momenten” ‘in difficult moments’ (Viroflay-Montrecourt, de
19194/[1910]: 136-7).
Mostly tact appears in Heyd’s first, cognitive meaning. In L’usage et le
bon ton de nos jours (Parr 1892) the term tact appears in multiple refer-
ences to difficult decisions. The book relates didactic conversations
between an Asian visitor in Paris (the wife of a diplomate from Tonkin)9
and her Parisian etiquette mentor, who accompanies her to various
encounters on the social agenda and comments on the rules. At one
point, the foreigner, the ‘I’ of the first-person narrative, exclaims:
9
Tonkin is a region in the North of Vietnam. It was a French protectorate between 1884 and 1945.
6 Blunders 269
— Oh! comme c’est difficile, le savoir-vivre! m’écriai-je.

— Mais non, ce n’est qu’une affaire de tact et de bon vouloir, et je suis
certaine que vous ne manquez ni de l’un ni de l’autre. ‘— Oh! etiquette is
so difficult! I cried out.—Not at all, it’s only a matter of tact and goodwill,
and I’m sure you have both.’ (Parr 1892: 31).
The complicatedness of etiquette is remediated by tact. Elsewhere, the

etiquette mentor tells an anecdote to prove “comment l’on peut toujours
avec un peu d’esprit et de tact, se tirer d’une situation embarrassante”
‘how you can always, with a little wit and tact, extricate yourself from an
embarrassing situation’ (Parr 1892: 17). At another moment, an elderly
lady enters a drawing-room and the narrator is discretely prompted by
her mentor to vacate the seat of honour, on the sofa next to the hostess.
The mentor discusses the rule according to which female guests take it in
turn to occupy the seat of honour:
Cette règle n‘est pas absolue, et une femme âgée ne la subira pas en l’offrant
à une jeune femme; mais elle doit être indiquée comme l’une de ces lignes
de conduite qui laissent une large part au tact des visiteurs. ‘This rule is not
absolute, and an elderly woman will not be subjected to offering her place
to a young woman; but it must be indicated as one of those lines of behav-
iour which leave a large part to the visitors’ tact.’ (Parr 1892: 63)
As the rule is not absolute, tact is needed to make the appropriate deci-
sion, which here is based on age. This example regards the mentor’s advice
on gifts:
Vous comprenez qu’en ces circonstances, qui sont loin d’être toutes iden-
tiques, le tact et l’appréciation personnel [sic] peuvent seuls faire bien juger
la question. ‘You understand that in these circumstances, which are far
from being all the same, the matter can only be properly handled when
using tact and personal judgment.’ (Parr 1892: 115).
As different circumstances are unique, one rule cannot fit all, and there-
fore tact is needed to judge appropriately. Finally, a similar idea surfaces
yet in another chapter: when behaviour cannot be decided “d’une façon
absolue” ‘in an absolute way’, the decision is “une affaire d’appréciation
270 A. Paternoster
et de tact, que les règles générales ne peuvent jamais complètement indi-

quer” ‘a matter of judgement and tact, which general rules can never fully
indicate’ (Parr 1892: 226).
The quotes consistently mention a need to adapt to particular circum-
stances when the rules leave room for manoeuvring. Chapter 3 has indi-
cated that, for some sources, politeness in the meaning of fraternal love
has a stopgap function in relation to etiquette. When a circumstance is
not covered by etiquette, use politeness; when, however, a circumstance
is covered by generic rules, use tact. For Learned tact matters when mak-
ing introductions—“individual tact and good judgment must often
decide the issue” (Learned 1906: 92)—and during conversation—“Tact
[…] may be attained by quick judgment and intelligence” (Learned
1906: 205). Tact appears to be foremost the intellectual capacity of mak-
ing a prudent judgement call.
Tact also appears in Heyd’s second, emotional meaning of empathy, but
this is less present. This passage is on letter writing: in a letter “quelques
mots échappés suffisent pour montrer que nous manquons de tact et de
sentiments généreux, que nous sommes égoïstes, envieux et jaloux” ‘a few
unguarded words are enough to show that we lack tact and generous feel-
ings, that we are selfish, envious and jealous’ (G.-M. 1908: 212). Tact here
is a virtue, generosity, the opposite of selfishness and jealousy.
In Sketch Engine, the UK-English Word Sketch lists two interesting
correlates in the column ‘tact and/or’: ‘discretion’, in first position, ‘dis-
cernment’ in 10th position, besides ‘judgement’ in 15th position. The
US-English Word Sketch for ‘tact’ also has ‘discretion’ in first position
and ‘judgement’ in 12th position. The French Thesaurus for tact has dis-
cernement in 6th position and jugement in 9th. Kádár and Paternoster
(2015) study the emic metaterm ‘discernment’ in Italian Renaissance
courtesy books, which contain the verb discernere ‘to discern, to distin-
guish the appropriate choice’ and the related metaterms discrezione ‘dis-
cretion’ and discreto ‘discreet’. The terms, they argue, refer to an intellectual
capacity to make decisions about appropriate behaviour, especially in
cases where the distinctions between options are veiled, blurred, hazy
(Kádár and Paternoster 2015: 380-381). Italian sixteenth-century discer-
nere, they conclude, relates to ‘good judgement’ (Kádár and Paternoster
2015: 382). Kádár and Paternoster (2015) point out an important
6 Blunders 271
discrepancy between the scientific, etic use of the term Discernment (a

politeness2 term, as Ridealgh and Jucker 2019 argue), and its historically
situated, emic, politeness1 use. As a result, there is a Discernment1 and a
Discernment2. The main objective of the study was to raise awareness for
the “historical ‘load’ of the term ‘discernment”’, especially because it car-
ries a metapragmatic meaning (Kádár and Paternoster 2015: 386) and
appears central in Italian courtesy books and their translations in English,
the language now prevailing in academic politeness discourse. While, at
the time, Kádár and Paternoster concluded that the etic and emic mean-
ings of the term were contradictory, I would now venture to say that there
is a slightly different type of relationship between them.
Where Ridealgh and Jucker (2019: 64) conclude that Discernment
has “no real correlation with the Latin origins of the word in European
languages, for example the Italian term discernere”, I would point out
that, if the first-order term ‘’discernment’ (Discernment1) has currency
in metapragmatic sources originating in a historical period for which
scholars believe social practices are governed by the principles of second-
order Discernment (Discernment2), surely there must be a relationship
between the metapragmatic emic term and the politeness concept cov-
ered by the scientific term. Only, with the scarcity of data, scholars have
not been able to correctly formulate the nature of this link. Discernment2
has to do with quasi-mandatory rules (and, as far as I am concerned,
with etiquette); Discernment1 (as seen in the Italian Renaissance cour-
tesy books studied by Kádár and Paternoster (2015) and in nineteenth-
century etiquette books) is synonymous with tact (in the cognitive
meaning studied by Heyd 1995), involving personal judgement. This is
because—however minute etiquette rules tend to be—in real life, there
are always going to be instances where there is no straightforward cor-
respondence between a rule and a unique circumstance. Sources warn
and prepare the reader for this kind of delicate situations, which, in a
way, are created precisely by the compulsory aspect of Discernment2.
Just because Discernment2 is so coercive, ‘hazy’ situations will create
unease—fear of blundering—and call for a problem-solving strategy.
Whereas, from a metacognitive perspective, the compliance with rules
covered under the scientific term Discernment2 usually only requires a
good memory and sufficient practice, Discerment1, or tact, comes into
272 A. Paternoster
its own when memory and practice are insufficient to work out correct
behaviour. In other words, when caught in the catch-22 of complicated-
ness and anxiety, turn to tact.
6.8 Conclusion
The topic of this chapter—one might as well call it the ‘dark’ side of eti-
quette—derives quite naturally from the previous one. If etiquette is both
compulsory and complicated, there is a real possibility of getting it wrong
and this, in turn, creates feelings of apprehension. The discourse on nega-
tive emotions has allowed to link etiquette to the notion of ritual, and
specifically to its requirement to be performed by ratified performers,
whereby a ratified audience may withhold ratification. The mechanism of
non-ratification is the following: the blundering individual reveals him-
or herself to be an intruder in the network because the blunder itself
reveals that he or she is ‘unused’ to society. Since the stakes are so high
(inclusion in the prestigious network) and the pitfalls plentiful (etiquette
is complicated), the sources tend to elaborate on negative feelings, rang-
ing from shame and shyness to full-blown anxiety.
The sources focus on two groups of newcomers, young people born
within the elite (but not necessarily socialised within it, given their age)
and the upwardly mobile. The figure of the debutante (and her male
counterpart) highlights the liminal nature of etiquette rituals. If it is true
that even adults fear walking into a room full of people, this fear is mag-
nified in young people who make their very first entrance in society. Fully
aware of the problem, the sources do not fail to discuss remedies, and the
extensive discourse on remedies probably documents the extent of the
problem, although etiquette books may be accused of fearmongering, as
this would increase sales. A second type of newcomer is the transclass.
While etiquette books are specifically in the business of guiding the
upwardly mobile towards ratified membership of desirable networks, so-
called parvenus stay non-ratified, since they perform the social rituals in
a non-ratified way. In this context, etiquette acts as a fully fledged gate-
keeping device as it embraces the role of detector or “defensive weeder”—
to repeat the apt word choice by Morgan (1994: 28)—stopping
6 Blunders 273
undesirable individuals from stepping over the threshold (Latin limen in

‘liminal’). In particular, two types of behaviour contribute to the ‘detec-
tion’ of the ‘parvenu’: arrogance towards inferiors and ostentatious over-
performing, a non-verbal form of hypercorrection especially visible in
choice of dress and jewels. Verbal hypercorrections regard pompous
vocabulary, pompous titles to refer to family members, or the overly fre-
quent use of titles in a conversation with a person of rank.
The gatekeeping function of etiquette does not only reveal itself in the
existence of tests meant to detect outsiders; in Anglo-American sources it
even determines an exclusion ritual, by which a woman may snub a man
who has been the object of a provisional introduction, say, at a ball or
during a walk. There exist two ways of ending an acquaintance: ignoring
the man by not initiating a greeting, which causes least disruption, and
the ‘cut’, a continuous stare on the street, which is only acceptable in
extreme cases and rude in any other case. Sources on the European main-
land evaluate the Anglo-American ritual as empowering for women.
Finally, the chapter has discussed two remedies to counter the risk of
blundering: ease and tact. Ease, or effortlessness, needs to prevent eti-
quette blunders: the etiquette learner needs to memorise the rules and
practice them at home before venturing into ‘good’ society. With con-
tinuous practice, etiquette will soon become second nature, it becomes,
as it were, innate. Remarkably, while the Revolutions of the eighteenth
century were all about the bourgeois abolishing a society based on birth
right, roughly a century later, birth right is invoked to help the same
bourgeois convincingly ‘perform’ the ratified behaviour of the elite. While
ease has to do with practice and seamless performance, tact is the intel-
lectual capacity of judgement, called upon when the social actor encoun-
ters a case where there is a need to adapt the rules to a unique circumstance.
I brought together tact as a first-order meaning of ‘discernment’ with
Discernment as a second-order term. The need for Discernment1 (a need
for judgement when it is unclear how the rule fits a particular circum-
stance) derives from the coerciveness and complicatedness of
Discernment2.
My working definition of etiquette now needs a reference to rituals,
ratification, negative emotions occasioned by complicatedness and rem-
edies. The update is in italics:
274 A. Paternoster
Etiquette is a set of conventions and rituals regulating social behaviour,

which vary with time and place. Etiquette is highly compulsory and the
demand for compliance performs a gatekeeping function, which ratifies
admission into the social elite. Although itself of an amoral nature, eti-
quette derives morality from politeness, the moral virtue of fraternal love,
which young adults and the upwardly mobile are supposed to have acquired
previously. Originating in court protocol, etiquette expresses close adher-
ence to social hierarchy and is organised in terms of recurring social (i.e.
private and institutional) circumstances such as visits, dinners, balls, court
presentations, for which it provides complicated, detailed scripts. Because
etiquette is at the same time highly compulsory and complicated, it generates
feelings of unease in the etiquette learner, going from embarrassment to anxiety,
which may be addressed by ease and tact.
The next chapter picks up the argumentation strand which I have

started in Chap. 5, on the link between etiquette and Discernment2,
with the aim to demonstrate the omnipresence of rank in the organisa-
tion of the daily life of the elite.
References
6 Blunders 275
The Book of Fashionable Life: Comprising the Etiquette of the DrawingRoom,

DiningRoom, and BallRoom by a Member of the Royal Household. [1845]2.
V. Sarlit.
The English Gentlewoman; Or, a Practical Manual for Young Ladies on Their
Entrance in Society. 18492. London: H. Colburn.
276 A. Paternoster
C. Tilt.
183816/1837. London: C. Tilt.
Poussielgue.
and Sons.
D. Appleton and co.
6 Blunders 277

Renzo Streglio.
Nogent, Mme L. de. 1886. Catéchisme du bon ton et des usages du monde. Paris :
Compagnie.
F. Casanova e C.
Ulrico Hoepli.
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on Late Modern English, ed. M. Dossena, 73–97. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Dossena, M. 2019b. Usage guides, social commentary and views on education
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Heyd, D. 1995. Tact: Sense, sensitivity, and virtue. Inquiry 38: 217–231.
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Transgressions in the History of English: Literary and Linguistic Approaches, ed.
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Benjamins.
6 Blunders 279

Research 9 (2): 133–158.
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London: Sage.
7
Precedence
7.1 Introduction
Chapters 3 and 4 have highlighted the compulsory nature of etiquette by
close reading of prefatory materials, a corpus-linguistic approach based
on my self-built corpus and large historical corpora, and data from lexi-
cography and etymology. Building on these premises Chap. 5 has further
unravelled the compulsory nature of etiquette regarding its scripted and
situational appropriacy as a first step to demonstrate the hypothesis that
nineteenth-century etiquette can be seen as a historically and geographi-
cally situated manifestation of Discernment. Chapter 6 has continued
down that avenue with a focus on complicatedness. As suggested by
Ridealgh and Jucker (2019), Discernment as an analytical term is useful
to describe social behaviour which is “socially and situationally adequate
and quasi-mandatory” and which “closely reflects the social relationship
between speaker and addressee, as well as the social and linguistic context
within which the exchange takes place (2019: 59). Note that Ridealgh
and Jucker specifically aim to highlight the importance of “the relation-
ship dynamic between subordinates and superiors”. They feel this notion
is absent from earlier accounts (such as Hill et al. 1986; Kádár and Mills
282 A. Paternoster
2013), which are an “over-simplification” in that respect (Ridealgh and

Jucker 2019: 64–65). The last part of the analysis builds on Ridealgh and
Jucker’s hypothesis by mapping the contexts in which societal expecta-
tions for correct behaviour are based on rank, with the aim to demon-
strate how the rules for asymmetrical relationships between inferiors and
superiors shape frequent, completely ordinary actions, such as shaking
hands, greetings, choosing seats in a drawing-room or in a carriage, to
name but a few. In British sources the phenomenon by which social hier-
archy imposes a correct order in which to do certain things is called ‘pre-
cedence’ or ‘precedency’: ‘precedence’ has 179 hits and ‘precedency’ 37.
The US sources do not use ‘precedency’; however, ‘precedence’ is used 52
times. French sources use préséance (48 hits), Italian ones precedenza (10
hits), Dutch ones voorrang (14 hits).
Precedence affects behaviour in two ways. Firstly, it affects the timing
of certain actions, whereby the superior in rank has the right to do some-
thing first. Chapter 5 has highlighted the presence of sequencing.
Initiating certain steps is the prerogative of the higher in rank.
Introductions are fundamentally based on rank: when seeking to intro-
duce someone, one must first obtain the permission of the superior in
rank and then always introduce the inferior to the superior. Even a ges-
ture as anodyne as a handshake follows precise sequencing whereby only
the superior can initiate the gesture. Secondly, there is a spatial prece-
dence by which the superior is entitled to occupy the place of honour.
Spatial precedence is very tangibly visualised in processions: a formal
dinner involves an opening and a closing procession from the drawing-
room to the dining-room and back. The spatial distribution of people
according to rank determines who sits where around a dinner table, in
an opera/theatre box, in a carriage. It determines who walks where on
the pavement or in a park. In a drawing-room, some seats are more
‘honourable’ than others. At times precedence in time and space pro-
duces a joint effect: during dinner, the female guest of honour leads the
procession with the host, but she also is served before everybody else. In
terms of language advice, rank governs the use of honorifics in a letter.
However, besides aristocratic peerage, other ranking principles are also
at work, such as public office, age, gender and marital status (on the
7 Precedence 283
pragmatics of space as a communicative resource, see Jucker and

Hausendorf 2022).
Numerous contextual areas of etiquette are governed with rules that
are rooted in social hierarchy. A higher in rank has more rights: he or she
sits closer to the fire, gets the more comfortable seat, is served food first,
occupies the safer part of the pavement, has the front seat in the opera/
theatre box, faces forward in a carriage, etc. Crucially, he or she enjoys
comfort, warm food, safety, a view, at the expense of the inferiors, with-
out this being perceived by the latter as being impolite, that is, a selfish,
unfair distribution of resources and a slight to their face. The higher in
rank has the uncontested power to do things first and to occupy the best
positions. In this sense, precedence, as a (mainly, but not exclusively)
non-verbal manifestation of Discernment, can be linked to the notion of
Potestas, Latin for ‘power’, as investigated by Ridealgh and Unceta Gómez
(2020) for Late Egyptian and Old Latin. Politeness in these ancient lan-
guages reflects a very strict hierarchical society, where Power is a “fixed
phenomenon and not negotiated between interlocutors within interac-
tions” (Ridealgh and Unceta Gómez 2020: 231). Whereas deference
regards the behaviour of the subordinate towards the superior in a con-
text where social interaction is based on Discernment, Potestas is its
opposite: it is the behaviour of the superior towards the subordinate,
which “minimalizes facework and prioritises social status” (Ridealgh and
Unceta Gómez 2020: 234). Ridealgh and Unceta Gómez identify two
key principles in the definition of Potestas:
1) that the interaction exchange is shaped by Power and not individual

facewants (which are irrelevant from the viewpoint of the superior); 2) that
the ability of the high-Power individual to utilise a range of linguistic
forms, many of which could be interpreted as FTAs outside of the unequal
relationship, does not impact on the continued maintenance of the rela-
tionship. (2020: 236)
In the case of verbal behaviour, the higher in rank can use impositives or
even threats, but, importantly, this is not a show of impoliteness “given
that there is no place for the consideration of certain acts as Face-
Threatening” (Ridealgh and Unceta Gómez 2020: 241; see Paternoster
284 A. Paternoster
2015: 182–217 on “discernment cursing” in master-servant interactions

in eighteenth-century plays by Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni, in
reference to Kádár and Haugh 2013: 80). For the non-verbal examples of
precedence etiquette given above, the fact that the higher in rank deprives
the inferior from the use of certain resources (warmth, light, comfort,
choice pieces of food, a view, safety) is not seen as impolite. On the con-
trary, it is prescribed as a social convention. However, by applying the
notion Potestas, which, so far has only been studied for remote cultures, I
am not saying that the society of nineteenth-century Europe and North
America is as stratified as that of remote cultures. Whilst Victorian soci-
ety is undoubtedly stratified, it nevertheless allows many to cross class
borders. However, it is not because you can cross a social barrier that the
barrier does not exist (Fisher 1992: 135). I am trying to make the point
that middle-class members were asked to copy a type of behaviour that is
rooted in the aristocratic ideology centred around privilege and birth
right (already seen in the notion of ease, in Sect. 6.7). By copying a
behaviour linked to a prestigious group, the upwardly mobile perpetuate
a type of superior-inferior dynamic that maintains convincing parallel-
isms with the remote linguistic phenomena described by Ridealgh and
Unceta Gómez (2020).
Section 7.2 will use a linguistic example, involving an offer of food, to
illustrate how differences in rank determine verbal and non-verbal aspects
of the same speech act. Section 7.3 puts forward an important argument
for the quasi-mandatory nature of the subordinate-superior dynamic: in
Britain and France, precedence is enshrined in law. While this makes
precedence fully mandatory in an institutional context, it makes it at least
quasi-mandatory in a non-institutional context. The remainder of Chap. 7
proposes an inventory of non-verbal precedency, except for the last para-
graph, which is about letter-writing and conversation. The chapter will
list all the various circumstances containing a precedence script, and will
cite examples. The focus is on providing a complete picture, rather than
providing in-depth analysis of the examples, which are, arguably, easy to
understand. It is assumed that precedence rules are identical for the vari-
ous languages under scrutiny, unless stated otherwise.
7 Precedence 285
7.2 The Lesson of the Beef

Two French sources narrate an anecdote involving a dinner given by de
Talleyrand, the French top diplomat who worked, often as secretary of
state, in successive governments from Louis XVI to king Louis-Philippe.
Talleyrand, the Prince of Benevento, so the story goes, entertains numer-
ous guests over dinner. He offers them a portion of beef, but the way he
formulates the offer varies with the rank of the guests. According to
F. G.-M., author of the 1908 Manuel de politesse à l’usage de la jeunesse,
the example of “la leçon dite du bœuf, donnée par Talleyrand” ‘the so-
called lesson of the beef, given by Talleyrand’ teaches the reader to “varier
ses formules, suivant qu’on s’adresse à des inférieurs, à des égaux ou à des
supérieurs” ‘vary one’s formulae, depending on whether one addresses
inferiors, equals or superiors’ (G.-M. 1908: 151). All the variables stay
the same, except rank:
Un jour, ce prince avait une douzaine de personnes à dîner. Après le potage,

il offre du bœuf à ses convives.
Monsieur le duc, dit-il à un premier avec un air de déférence et en choisis-
sant le meilleur morceau, aurais-je l’honneur de vous offrir du bœuf?
Monsieur le marquis, dit-il à un second avec un sourire plein de grâce,
aurais-je le plaisir de vous offrir du bœuf?
A un troisième, avec un signe d’affabilité particulière: Cher comte, vous
offrirai-je du bœuf?
A un quatrième, avec bienveillance: Baron, accepterez-vous du bœuf?
Enfin, à un monsieur placé au bout de la table, le prince, montrant le
plat de son couteau, dit avec un mouvement de tête et un sourire bienveil-
lant: Un peu de bœuf?
C’est un grand art de savoir proportionner les égards à la qualité et au
mérite de chacun. ‘One day this prince had a dozen or so people over for
dinner. After the soup, he offers beef to his guests. Monsieur le Duc, he said
to a first guest with an air of deference and choosing the best piece, may I
have the honour of offering you some beef? Monsieur le Marquis, he said to a
second guest with a gracious smile, may I have the pleasure of offering you
some beef? To a third, with a sign of particular affability: Dear Count, will I
offer you beef? To a fourth, kindly: Baron, will you accept some beef? Finally,
to a gentleman at the end of the table, the prince, pointing to the dish with
286 A. Paternoster
his knife, said with a nod and a benevolent smile: A little beef? It is a great
art to know how to proportion one’s respect to the quality and the merit of
the others.’ (G.-M. 1908: 151, original emphasis)1
Besides the fact that the French secretary of state is avoiding the word
bouilli for beef, what else is to be gleaned from this scene, which is pre-
sented as a lesson, and appreciated as a ‘great art’? Note the source is
already from 1908. Around Talleyrand are gathered: a duke, marquis,
count, baron and a non-descript monsieur, with or without blue blood.
The guests are treated differently, not only in terms of linguistic expres-
sions, but also in terms of tone, body language and food. The highest in
rank is offered the best piece of beef, “le meilleur morceau”, and the low-
est in rank gets whatever is left. Note the fact that with the last guest,
Talleyrand points to the platter with his knife and a head movement,
which seems to suggest that the guest needs to help himself. The last guest
is also seated “au bout de la table”, ‘at the table end’, that is, the least
honourable spot, as I will show below. Talleyrand’s body language and his
facial expressions are going from deferential to informal, but kind. He
successively talks with “un air de déférence” ‘an air of deference’, “un
sourire plein de grâce” ‘a gracious smile’, “un signe d’affabilité particu-
lière” ‘a sign of particular affability’, “avec bienveillance” ‘kindly’, “avec
[…] un sourire bienveillant” ‘with a benevolent smile’, resp. Note also the
transition from honneur to plaisir in the offers. The duke is presumably
higher in rank than Talleyrand, so he bestows honour on Talleyrand by
accepting the beef; the marquis is lower in rank, so honour is bestowed
upon him from Talleyrand. Indeed, the Manuel formulates this as a rule:
Les mots: avantage, plaisir, honneur, n’étant pas synonymes, ne doivent pas
s’employer indifféremment. À un supérieur, on dira : Aurai-je bientôt
l’honneur de vous voir? à un ami: Aurai-je bientôt le plaisir? ‘The words avan-
tage, plaisir, honneur [advantage, pleasure, honour] not being synonymous,
1
To translate the terms of address, I used the titles prescribed in the chapter The Colloquial
Application of Titles and Precedency in Manners and Tone of Good Society ([1880]2/[1879]: 54)
regarding the address of French nobility. However, I translated cher comte and baron literally
because Talleyrand is moving away from conventional address. See also Sect. 5.7.
7 Precedence 287
they should not be used indifferently. To a superior, we will say: Aurai-je

bientôt l’honneur de vous voir? [Shall I soon have the honour of seeing you?]
to a friend: Aurai-je bientôt le plaisir? [Shall I soon have the pleasure]?’
(G.-M. 1908: 151)
Most noticeably, between Talleyrand’s first and last offer, the linguistic
formulae go from very elaborate to very simple: the last one does not even
have a verb. Regarding the titles of address, the first two are equally for-
mal, cher comte includes the term of endearment cher ‘dear’, Baron is
informal, and the last guest receives no address formula. Is he offended?
Talleyrand smiles “un sourire bienveillant”; clearly, the host does not have
the intention to offend. To be sure, no mention is made of a negatively
marked evaluation by the last guest. This point is aptly raised by Ridealgh
and Unceta Gómez (2020: 243): given the difference in rank between the
host and the guest at the lower end of the table, Talleyrand’s last offer is
perfectly in accordance with social expectancies and is “politic” (Watts
2003), not impolite.
Whilst the first source fully embraces the didactic value of the anec-
dote, the second source, presumably from 1870, is a lot more critical.2
The anecdote is introduced to illustrate the importance of nuances
(nuances), which “consistent à régler ses manières et son langage sur le
degré d’estime et de considération que l’on doit aux personnes avec
lesquelles l’on se trouve en rapport” ‘consist in regulating one’s manners
and language according to the degree of esteem and consideration that
one owes to the people with whom one finds oneself acquainted’
(Lambert, Mme [1870?]: 86). Note the author writes esteem and consid-
eration, not rank:
L’on a souvent cité à ce propos la Leçon du bœuf,—les cinq ou six manières

imaginées par M. de Talleyrand, pour offrir du bœuf à ses convives:
1. Monseigneur, disait-il avec une grande déférence, et en choisissant le
meilleur morceau, aurai-je l’honneur d’offrir du bœuf à Votre Altesse?
2
Gallica.fr does not offer a publication date. Mme Lambert is the pseudonym of Jules Rostaing,
born in 1824. Other publications by this prolific author date back to the 3rd quarter of the nine-
teenth century. He often mentions the Republic in this source, so the terminus ab quo for the
publication is 1870, the start of the Third Republic.
288 A. Paternoster
2. Monsieur le marquis (avec un sourire plein de grâce), aurai-je le plaisir

de vous offrir du bœuf?
3. Cher comte (avec un signe d’affabilité familière), vous offrirai-je
du bœuf?
4. Baron (avec bienveillance), accepterez-vous du bœuf?
5. Monsieur le conseiller,—non titré et de noblesse de robe—voulez-
vous du bœuf?
6. Enfin le prince, en indiquant le plat avec son couteau, disait à un
monsieur placé au bout de la table: un peu de bœuf? et il accompagnait ces
quatre mots d’un petit signe de tête et d’un léger sourire.
N’en déplaise à leurs admirateurs, ces sortes de nuances nous ont tou-
jours paru d’un ridicule achevé. ‘In this context, one has often quoted the
Lesson of the Beef—the five or six ways imagined by Mr. Talleyrand to offer
beef to his guests:
1. Prince, he said with great deference, and by choosing the best piece,
will I have the honour of offering beef to Your Royal Highness?
2. Monsieur le marquis (with a gracious smile), will I have the pleasure
of offering you some beef?
3. Dear Count (with a sign of informal affability), will I offer you
some beef?
4. Baron (kindly), will you accept some beef?
5. Counsellor,—untitled and a Noble of the Gown—do you want
some beef?
6. Finally, the prince, pointing to the dish with his knife, said to a gen-
tleman at the end of the table: a little beef? and he accompanied these three
words with a little nod and a slight smile.
With all due respect to their admirers, these kinds of nuances have
always struck me as utterly ridiculous.’ (Lambert, Mme [1870?]: 86–87)
The formulae are slightly different to the 1908 version and there is an
extra dinner guest, no. 5. In this version, both no. 5 and no. 6 lack a
noble title. But overall, the principle is the same: the gestures, facial
expressions and the verbal offers of beef vary from the first to the last one,
who still receives “un léger sourire” ‘a slight smile’. Only, this author finds
the variation utterly ridiculous, although he does not venture as far as to
say that Talleyrand is rude. Interestingly, Rostaing is not a republican: his
manual is very critical towards the so-called democracy installed by the
Republic and highly admirative of the Bourbon dynasty.
7 Precedence 289
The beef anecdote also appears in an American etiquette book by

Eleanor B. Clapp, who is highly critical of Talleyrand. Clapp finds
Talleyrand rude: “It is said that the famous Talleyrand used a sliding scale,
which ran from politeness to discourtesy, in asking his guests to take beef
at a dinner party that he once gave” (1910/1904: 17). There is a 6th per-
son, and Talleyrand allegedly says: “To his private secretary, ‘Beef ’?”
(1910/1904: 18). Clapp, however, adds a no. 7: “But, so the tale goes,
there was yet a humbler person present, and to him Talleyrand uttered no
word. He simply looked at him and made an interrogative gesture with
the carving knife” (1910/1904: 19). Note she omits the descriptions of
Talleyrand’s smile. For Eleanor B. Clapp, this is “discourtesy” as she con-
trasts Talleyrand’s behaviour with the politeness of George Washington.
While Talleyrand’s “sliding” offers of food are presented as exemplary in
a French 1908 source, it is strongly criticised in an American source of
the same period.
The principle that conventional behaviour varies with rank is further
illustrated by this 1882 Italian source by Count Bergando.3 The source
spells out different ways of receiving people of different rank, from a
labourer to a member of the royal family and an archbishop. Bergando
considers seven scripts. This is the script to receive a member of the work-
ing class:
Primo Esempio.
Una persona signorile volendo parlare con un operaio che viene a pren-
dere una ordinazione, sia a sollecitare un favore—se sta scrivendo, o fosse
in altro modo occupata, finirà probabilmente ciò che aveva cominciato,
facendolo intanto aspettare. Una volta poi introdotto, mentre se ne sta
seduto lo lascia in piedi, e dopo avergli parlato, quando vuole che se ne
vada lo accomiata con le semplici parole—potete andare. ‘First Example. A
gentleman wanting to talk to a worker who comes to take an order, or to
solicit a favour—if the gentleman is occupied in writing, or is otherwise
busy, he will probably finish what he started while making the worker wait.
Once the worker is introduced into the room, while the gentlemen is sit-
ting, he leaves the worker standing, and after speaking to him, when he
wants him to go, he dismisses him with the simple words—you may go.’
(Bergando, Il conte 1882/1881: 109–110)
3
Most probably a pseudonym.
290 A. Paternoster
Not only the labourer has to wait outside the room, he is also left stand-
ing the entire time. He can only leave when he is given permission.
Compare with script no. seven. A parish priest receives a visit from
his bishop:
VII.
Un parroco di campagna riceve il suo vescovo davanti la porta di casa—
ed accompagnatolo quando se ne va sino alla sua carrozza, rispettosamente
gliene apre lo sportello. ‘A country parish priest receives his bishop outside
the front door—when the bishops leaves the priest accompanies him to his
carriage, respectfully opening the door for him.’ (Bergando, Il conte
1882/1881: 111–112)
The priest waits outside for the arrival of the bishop and when the visitor
leaves, he accompanies him outside and even opens the carriage door.
Example no. 2 contains the reverse situation, of the country parish priest
visiting a cardinal archbishop:
II.
Un cardinale arcivescovo riceve un modesto parroco di campagna—
dopo avergli fatto fare abbastanza lunga anticamera—stando in piedi senza
invitarlo a sedere, e con un saluto gli fa capire allorché deve andarsene. ‘A
cardinal archbishop receives a modest country parish priest—after making
him wait for a fairly long time in the anteroom—, he receives the priest
standing without inviting him to sit down, and with a goodbye he makes
him understand when it is time to go.’ (Bergando, Il conte 1882/1881: 110)
The priest is, once again, the one left to wait, he is left to stand, and he is
told when to go. That the cardinal also remains standing signals that the
encounter is expected to be brief.
Although the difference in rank leads to an asymmetrical distribution
of rights, at no point is there any suggestion that this is rude towards the
lower in rank. To be sure, this asymmetrical distribution of rights is rela-
tive: when, in Bergando’s example no. 6, an ambassador receives the
Sovereign during a ball, the ambassador too waits at the bottom of the
staircase until the royal arrival. Occasionally, superiors become inferiors
and adopt “the differing linguistic expectations and ‘rights’ of these roles”
(Ridealgh and Unceta Gómez 2020: 242).
7 Precedence 291
Higher rank affords more power and is a variable that determines the
etiquette scripts in important ways. Furthermore, in some countries, the
power afforded by precedence is sanctioned by law.
7.3 Precedence and the Law

The 1849 Court Manual of Dignity and Precedence. Containing a Series
Ordinum, Table of Precedency, and Chapter on Armorial Incidents, Honorary
Styles, and Chivalrous Insignia reminds readers that noble titles and privi-
lege are written into various Acts and Letters Patent. The relative prece-
dence of peers of England, Scotland, Ireland and the United Kingdom is
established by the Act of Union 1706 (art. 23) and the Act of Union
1800 (art. 4) as also stated by https://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/
order_precedence.htm (accessed 13.1.2022), where precedence is defined
as “the order in which men and women arrive, leave, march, are seated,
announced or greeted in official functions, ceremonies, receptions, din-
ners, documents”. The Court Manual traces the history of when the dif-
ferent titles within the High Nobility were created. This is followed by an
“Exact Table of Precedency”, consisting of a Precedency of Men, going
from the King to Citizens, and a Precedency of Women, going from the
Queen to the Wives of Citizens (1849: 32–37). The table is based on the
Letters Patent 10, granted by King James I.
While the Court Manual is a heraldic publication, etiquette books
include similar information about precedence being rooted in law:
For the satisfaction of such readers [who think that precedence “is regu-
lated by any passing conventional arrangements”], it may be necessary to
state that the system of Precedence rests upon the authority of Acts of
Parliament, solemn decisions in Courts of justice, and public instruments
proceeding from the Crown. (Court Etiquette [1849]: 174–175)
The source then lists successive acts by Henry VIII, James I, William and
Mary, Anne and George III (Court Etiquette [1849]: 175). Precedence is
useful, the source claims: whereas an arbitrary treatment can “not fail to
give mortal offence to some of his guests”, precedence has the advantage
292 A. Paternoster
of providing the host with “authoritative rules”, which “can alone save
him from such a misery, by giving him a certain guide” (Court Etiquette
[1849]: 175). The book provides a precedence table, in which every rank
is accompanied by “the Act of Parliament, the warrant or other public
document, by which the particular precedence has been acquired” (Court
Etiquette [1849]: 178). In the precedence table for men 128 different
ranks separate the King from a labourer. For women, there are 84 ranks
going from the Queen to the wives of professional gentlemen. Precedence
is called upon to determine the correct order in which dining guests will
proceed from the drawing-room to the dining-room:
Her husband, or whatever other male relation occupies the chief place in
her house [of the hostess], offers his arm to the lady most entitled to prece-
dence, and intimates to the most important male guest that he (the latter)
should take charge of the hostess; the host disappears immediately from the
drawing-room, with the lady whom he has taken in charge; but the hostess
and her escort remain there to the last; for the important duty devolves
upon that lady, of naming to each male guest whomsoever he is to conduct
to dinner—a matter of some delicacy even in the highest society. (Court
Etiquette [1849]: 67)
Trusler (1804: 92) also includes a precedence table, of 59 levels (as noted
in Morgan 1994: 28). To be precise, Trusler’s chapter on dining etiquette
is called Precedency, &c. Its title reflects the importance of precedence for
the procession, a fixed recurrence of the dining script:
It is necessary, prior to dinner, to look round and consider the several

degrees of rank of the company present, that there may be no confusion in
walking into the room where the table is served. The table of precedency at
the end of this volume, will help you out. (Trusler 1804: 39)
The Book of Fashionable Life [1845] and [Cheadle] 1872 also include pre-
cedency rankings. Four UK sources recommend a host and hostess con-
sult precedency lists in dedicated heraldic publications before drawing up
a seating plan: The Hand-Book of Etiquette 1860; Routledge and Sons
[1875?]; Manners and Tone of Good Society [1880]2/[1879]; Modern
7 Precedence 293
Etiquette in Public and Private 1887/[1871]. In each case the reference is

to Burke and Debrett (see Chap. 1). What is more, Manners and Rules of
Good Society (188815: 42) tells hosts to check rankings, not in one list, but
in various specialised precedency lists: Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage,
Law List, Clergy List, Army List, Navy List, Relative Rank and Precedency
in the Army and Navy.
In France, different forms of government succeed each other until
1870, when the Third Republic is established. Nevertheless, even under
the Republic, a Napoleonic Decree is still used to rank guest: Décret
impérial du 24 messidor an XII relatif aux cérémonies publiques, préséances,
honneurs civils et militaires (Napoléon Ier 1804). In its first pages, the
Decree provides an order of precedency to be respected during public
ceremonies, covering 25 different ranks. The difference with the British
list is that it only includes one noble rank, the highest one, reserved for
the princes de France ‘princes of France’ and that the remaining degrees
refer exclusively to public office, military and clergy. Three etiquette
sources refer to the Messidor Decree to organise dining precedence,
Lambert, Mme ([1870?]), Chambon (1907) and Magallon (1910). Note
these sources are published during the Third Republic, with the last two
well into the twentieth century. Clearly, the Decree has a long aftermath.
The list is updated by removing the princes of France. La Comtesse de
Magallon (1910) proposes an extensive list:
Dans les repas de cérémonie, les dîners officiels, les maisons où l’on reçoit
beaucoup de fonctionnaires, des gens titrés ou gradés, la question des pré-
séances est épineuse. La meilleure manière de la résoudre est de s’en rap-
porter à ce classement, consacré par le décret de messidor an XII:
“Cardinaux, ministres, sénateurs, grands-officiers de la Légion d’honneur,
généraux de division, premiers présidents de Cour d’appel, archevêques,
préfets, conseillers à la Cour d’appel, généraux de brigade, évêques, colo-
nels, sous-préfets, présidents de tribunaux de première instance, présidents
des tribunaux de commerce, maires, commandants, présidents de consis-
toire, etc.” ‘With formal meals, official dinners, in houses which receive
many officials, titled guests or guest with a senior grade, the question of
precedence is a thorny one. The best way to resolve it is to refer to this clas-
sification, established by the Decree of Messidor year XII: “Cardinals, sec-
retaries of state, senators, grand officers of the Légion d’Honneur,
294 A. Paternoster
Major-Generals, first presidents of the Court of Appeal, archbishops, pre-

fects, advisers to the Court of Appeal, brigadier generals, bishops, colonels,
sub-prefects, presidents of the Court of First Instance, presidents of the
Commercial Court, mayors, commanders, presidents of Consistory, etc.”’
(Magallon, La Comtesse de 1910: 35)
The quotation marks make it look as if she is quoting from the actual
Decree, but she only follows it loosely. When no guest has an official
function, age is the determining factor (Magallon, La Comtesse de 1910:
36). The point to take away from this, for the UK as well as for France, is
that, even though the list is established for an institutional context, it is
applied in a setting which is entirely private: the formal dinner. No such
references to a legal framework appear in the other subcorpora, except for
one Dutch source, the translation from George Routledge [1875?]:
“Wanneer het gezelschap van uitgezochten aard is, zal de gastheer wèl
doen Debrett of Burke te raad plegen, alvorens hij zijne bezoekers rangs-
chikt” ([Routledge] 18792: 47), which corresponds to the original “When
the society is of a distinguished kind the host will do well to consult
Debrett or Burke, before arranging his visitors” (Routledge [1875?]: 57).
Of course, there is no sense at all in recommending British peerage guides
for nineteenth-century Dutch aristocracy, which was mostly created after
the fall of Napoleon, in 1814.
Having established that precedence is rooted in law, in the next section
I will list the multiple contexts for which the social script is based on
precedence.
7.4 Precedence Scripts

7.4.1 Dining-Room Precedence
Because formal dining involves processions to make the transition from

the drawing-room to the dining-room and back, it is the context par
excellence where precedence is applied. As seen above, the references to
British precedence tables are all made in the context of a formal dinner.
Section 5.5, dedicated to the dining-room script, included a French
7 Precedence 295
example, where precedence was based on age: the host opens the proces-
sion, la marche, with the female guest of honour. The rest follow in order
of age, and the procession is closed by the hostess, who is taken into din-
ner by the male guest of honour. Some sources use the term notables (9
hits) to indicate the most honourable guest (see Sect. 2.3 on the French
composite ruling class of notables):
La maîtresse de maison invite alors les convives à la suivre; elle accepte le

bras de l’homme le plus notable de la réunion, et elle passe dans la salle à
manger […]. ‘The mistress of the house then invites the guests to follow
her; she accepts the arm of the most notable man in the meeting, and she
goes into the dining room’. (Drohojowska, Comtesse de 18787: 37; similar
in Bassanville, Comtesse de 1867: 229)
In most sources the place of honour is given to the most elderly guest or
the person with the highest social position (e.g. Lambert, Mme de
[1870?]: 119). Age is usually mentioned before social position. Aristocratic
rank is never mentioned. Priests are an exception: they always have pre-
cedence (Chambon 1907: 148), as they do in Italy (Colombi, Marchesa
1877: 100).
Like in French sources, Italian precedence is a combination of age and
social standing, with a preference for age. The Italian host “offrirà il brac-
cio alla signora di maggior riguardo” ‘will offer his arm to the most
respected lady’, that is, “una signora superiore per condizione, o per mer-
iti e ingegno (se pure meriti e ingegno danno diritto a superiorità)” ‘a lady
of superior station, or merits and intelligence (if ever merits and intelli-
gence give right to superiority)’, with the ironic observation that position
seems to always overrule intrinsic worth and intelligence of a woman
(Vertua Gentile 1897 : 302). The hostess takes down “colui che per età o
posizione dev’esser suo cavaliere” ‘he who by age or position must accom-
pany her’ (Nevers 1883: 94). Nevers specifies:
Notisi qui che l’onore si tributa piuttosto all’età che alla posizione, e che
sarebbe disdicevole dar il passo ad una sposina sopra una vecchia signora,
se anche è in condizione più cospicua. ‘Note here that honour is paid more
to age than to position, and that it would be unbecoming to give prece-
296 A. Paternoster
dence to a newlywed over an old lady, even if the former is in a more

important position.’ (Nevers 1883: 94)
For the person who leads the procession, Italian sources use terms such as
“la dama più autorevole” ‘the most respected lady’, “il cavaliere più degno”
‘the worthiest gentleman’ (Gibus del Mattino 1900: 78). Note how the
adjectives are rather generic: these sources lack a precise reference to rank
and, at any event, precedence lists are absent from Italian sources.
In a similar development, the Dutch aristocracy of regents was abol-
ished under the Napoleonic rule and after 1814 a composite ruling class
emerged (see Sect. 2.3). Dutch sources avoid explicit references to aris-
tocracy. Precedence goes to the “voornaamste” ‘principal’ guest ([Celnart]
18552/[1836]: 69) or to the guest who is “hooggeplaatst” ‘of high rank’
(Bruck-Auffenberg 1900/1897: 202–203) or “aanzienlijkste” ‘most
respected’ “wegens […] rang of ouderdom” ‘given rank or age’ (Rappart,
Jonkvrouw van 19123/1885: 21). “Aanzienlijk” translates literally as
‘notable’ and it is precisely the criterium for a family to be included in
“Het blauwe boekje” of patricians (Koningsberger 2005; see Sect. 2.5).
The search string ‘aanzienlijk*’ appears 29 times in the Dutch corpus.
The aforementioned sources are based on French or German originals,
but the next source is a Dutch original:
De vrouw des huizes of die haar plaats inneemt, gaat, vergezeld van den
waardigsten der gasten, voorop, de andere gasten volgen naar rang of
leeftijd. ‘The lady of the house or whoever takes her place, leads the way
accompanied by the worthiest of the guests, the other guests following
according to rank or age.’ (Handboekje der wellevendheid [1910]: 96)
Age and social position are determining, but, like for Italian sources, pre-
cedence lists are absent. On the European mainland, in countries where
the ancien régime aristocracy was replaced by a composite ruling class of
notables, precedence is based on a more flexible system governed by social
prestige and seniority.
British aristocratic rank can also be determined by age, not of the
guests, but of the creation of the specific title. For Manners and Tone of
Good Society, noble guests of (apparently) similar rank “take precedence
7 Precedence 297
according to the creation of their title, and not with regard to the age of
the person bearing the title”, citing the following examples:
As, for instance, a duke of nineteen years of age, would take precedence of
a duke of ninety years of age, if the title of the youthful duke bore an earlier
date than that of the aged duke. If two barons were present at a dinner-
party, the date of their respective patents of nobility would decide the order
of precedency due to them. (Manners and Tone [1880]2/[1879]: 58–59)
The advice for hosts is to always “consult a ‘Peerage’ or ‘Baronetage’”

(Manners and Tone [1880]2/[1879]: 59).
But when British guests are of similar rank, age is most cited as an
alternative criterion. This more or less coincides with the rule by which
married women have precedence over unmarried ones. Another principle
regards familiarity. The guest who is least known to the group, the new-
comer, occupies the place of honour:
When rank is not in question, other claims to precedence must be consid-

ered. The lady who is the greatest stranger should be taken down by the
master of the house, and the gentleman who is the greatest stranger should
conduct the hostess. Married ladies take precedence of single ladies, elder
ladies of younger ones, and so forth. (Routledge [1875?]: 57–58, see also
Trusler 1804: 39)
How do American sources see precedence? Do they use the French sys-
tem of the Third Republic, based on public office? This UK source has
not much faith in American proceedings:
In countries where no recognised social ranks exist—as America for

instance—they are apparently not far from a state of nature in this respect,
if we may trust the following anecdote narrated by a writer in the Quarterly
Review. “A foreign diplomatist, formerly attached to an embassy in
America, relates, that at a dinner given by one of the Secretaries of State,
the members of the government not merely took precedence of the foreign
ministers without hesitation, but fairly got jammed in the passage, from
their excessive eagerness to outstrip one another!” (Court Etiquette [1849]:
176, original emphasis)
298 A. Paternoster
American dinner precedence does not make explicit reference to rank, or

it is discarded as a foreign habit: “Precedence of rank is not as common
here as in Europe” (Cooke 1899/1896: 202). Another source reports on
the “animosity” that was caused by Washington guests misunderstanding
diplomatic precedence (Moore 18782: 175). “It is fortunate”, Moore
writes, “that we are able in America to consult our wishes in such matters,
and give age, or strangers, or those for whom the dinner is given, the pre-
cedence, according to American customs; or a bride, according to English
and New England rules, without being in danger of incurring ill-will by
not observing the precedence that rank or station gives” (Moore 18782:
177). Note the observation that no “ill-will” will be incurred and compare
with the “mortal offence” predicted in aforementioned UK source. Indeed,
only one US source recommends giving precedence to the “wife of the
highest official” ([Longstreet] 18792: 96). The following is a representative
rule of precedence, from the end of the nineteenth century. Note how it
copies the British system in use for guests of similar rank:
In the matter of going out to dinner the host takes precedence, giving his
right arm to the most honored lady guest. If the dinner is given in honor
of any particular guest, she is the one chosen, if not, any bride that may be
present, or the oldest lady, or some visitor from abroad. The other guests
then fall in line, gentlemen having had their partners pointed out to them,
and wherever necessary, introductions are given. The hostess comes last of
all, having taken the arm of the gentleman most to be honored. (Cooke
1899/1896]: 202)
US precedence is a flexible system, mostly based on age, or on the wish of

the hosts to distinguish a person who may be celebrating a birthday or a
return to social life after a long convalescence ([Longstreet] 18792: 96).
Some US sources only indicate two guests of honour, a male and a female
one, to be escorted resp. by the hostess and the host to dinner, and do not
mention any subsequent ordering ([Longstreet] 18792; [Klein] 1899;
Learned 1906, amongst others).
In conclusion, the principle of aristocratic precedence is closely adhered
to in Britain, while US precedence is mostly based on age and copies the
British system for guest of similar rank. Dutch, French and Italian
7 Precedence 299
precedence is worked out as a combination of social standing and age,

with a preference for age, after Napoleonic-style governments largely
replaced hereditary aristocracy by a composite elite of notables. These
sources omit explicit mentions of aristocratic peerage.
After the procession, the precedence determines the seating plan, or, at
least, precedency is adhered to as long as it does not put people together
who know each other too well, like husband and wife, family members or
guests who share the same profession. The reason is that they are likely to
have private conversations, contravening the need for general conversa-
tion around the dinner table. The hosts face each other, and the two
guests of honour sit at the right-hand side of the hosts, with no. three and
no. four sitting at the hosts’ left-hand side, and so on: “[…] the lady sec-
ond in rank, would sit on the host’s left hand, and the other ladies would
occupy seats in the vicinity of the host, in the order in which they went
down to dinner” (Manners and Tone [1880]2/[1879]: 87). Dinner service
follows the seating plan: the female guest of honour “is considered the
starting-point for the waiters, who should always offer each dish first to
her” ([Cheadle] [1872]: 141). In British and American sources, tables are
of a rectangular shape and the hosts face each other, with the host sitting
at the bottom and the hostess at the top of the table. Whoever is higher
up in the ranking sits closer to the table end, and as a result, those at the
bottom of the ranking sit together at the centre of the table. This is a
British table arrangement:
If the table were a long one, the host and the lady taken down to dinner by
him, would occupy seats at the bottom of the table, if the party were a large
one, and the number of guests rendered such an arrangement of seats nec-
essary, otherwise, the host would sit in the centre at the end of the table,
and place the lady whom he had taken down, next to him, at the right-hand
side of the table; and the same rule precisely applies, to the seat occupied by
the hostess at the top of the table. She would sit in the centre, at the top of
the table, the gentleman by whom she had been taken down, being at the
left-hand side of the table, otherwise he would sit at her left hand at the top
of the table. (Manners and Tone [1880]2/[1879]: 87, original emphasis; see
also The Hand-Book of Etiquette 1860: 20)
300 A. Paternoster
There exists also an alternative arrangement where the hosts sit at the
centre of the table:
On arriving at the dining-room, the host’s seat is at the bottom of the table,
and his wife’s at the top, unless the fashion be adopted of occupying places
opposite one another in the middle of each side, which is sometimes the
case when the table is a long one. ([Cheadle] [1872]: 141)
Note that Cheadle’s UK manual is published with an editor who has

offices in London, Paris and New York. William Day proposes a similar
table plan: “In many houses of distinction, the master and mistress sit
vis-à-vis to each other at the middle of the table.” (Day 18362/1834: 13;
and identical in its US edition Day 1843: 13)
This arrangement, with the hosts facing each other at the middle of the
table, is in origin a French habit and it is also found in Italian sources
(Bergando 1882/1881; Nevers 1883). With this arrangement, the lower
ranks are split between both ends of the table. However, the French divide
the table in un haut bout and un bas bout, with the haut bout ‘high end’
or top, being more prestigious than the bas bout ‘low end’ or bottom. The
differences between the table ends are established by their position in
respect of the entrance to the dining-room. The one further away from
the door is the haut bout:
Distinction est encore faite entre le haut bout et le bas bout de la table. Le
haut bout est le côté opposé à la porte d’entrée principale. ‘Distinction is
also made between the top end and the bottom end of the table. The top is
the side opposite to the main entrance door.’ (Dufaux de La Jonchère
[1878–1888]6: 201)
The bas bout, “près de la porte d’entrée principale” ‘close to the entrance
door’ (G.-M. 1908: 57) is occupied by the younger guests:
Par une conséquence toute naturelle, les jeunes filles et les jeunes gens se
trouvent ainsi relégués aux deux bouts de la table, et de préférence au bas
bout, s’il reste quelques personnes âgées à placer de l’autre côté. ‘By a very
natural consequence, young girls and boys are thus relegated to both ends
of the table, and preferably to the bottom end, if there are still a few elderly
7 Precedence 301
people to be placed on the opposite side.’ (Dufaux de La Jonchère

[1878–1888]6: 202–203; see also Celnart, Mme 18346/1832: 254)
Here as well, precedence determines the order of service.
On doit commencer par servir ceux qui se trouvent à la droite des maîtres
de maison, ensuite ceux qui sont à gauche. On reprend ensuite à droite
pour continuer toute la table.
Si on a fait une place d’honneur du haut bout de la table, on doit servir
la personne qui s’y trouve avant de continuer toute la table. ‘One must
begin by serving those who are to the right of the masters of the house,
then those who are to the left. One then resumes service to the right to
continue to the rest of the table. If a place of honour has been made at the
top of the table, one must serve the person seated there before continuing
to the rest of the table.’ (Pompeillan, La Marquise de 1898: 55)
In Italian sources, handing out coffee in the drawing-room after diner

also follows the rules of precedence, that is, it is served “secondo il grado
sociale e l’età” ‘according to social rank and age’ (Vertua Gentile
1897: 303).
The Manuel de politesse à l’usage de la jeunesse includes a drawing of a
‘table setting’ disposition de la table, with numbers indicating the order of
precedence. In Fig. 7.1 the caption “Ordre des places” ‘order of the places’
translates as follows: 1. host—2. hostess—3. 1st place of honour
(woman)—4. 2nd place of honour (man)—5. 3rd place of honour
(woman)—6. 4th place of honour (man)—7. and 8. young people, chil-
dren. Note that the table plan for the extended family is extra compli-
cated, it is a “dangereux dédale” ‘dangerous labyrinth’, requiring
“beaucoup de tact” ‘a lot of tact’ (Dufaux de La Jonchère [1878–1888]6:
202; on tact see Sect. 6.7). She is in agreement with Baronne d’Orval,
who explains the risk of a possible clash between the rights of the mother
and the mother-in-law, avoided by alternating table plans (Orval, Baronne
d’ 19016: 164–165). Within families, further ranking is based on age and
marital status, where marriage goes before age. The wife of the oldest son
has precedence, but what to do if she is younger than the wife of the sec-
ond oldest brother?
302 A. Paternoster
Fig. 7.1 French table setting with numbered seating plan according to prece-
dence (G.-M. 1908: 42–43). Reproduced from Gallica.fr / Bibliothèque nationale
de France
L’étiquette veut que, lorsque deux frères sont mariés, la femme du frère
aîné ait le pas sur sa belle-sœur, celle-ci serait-elle de beaucoup plus âgée;
on peut ajouter qu’il est très bien permis à la jeune femme de céder sa
place à sa doyenne d’âge. ‘Etiquette dictates that, when two brothers are
married, the wife of the older brother has precedence over her sister-in-
law, if the latter is much older; it can be added that the younger woman
may very well give up her place to her older relative.’ (Orval, Baronne d’
19016: 165)
From my personal point of view, the saddest rule is the one demoting an
older sister the moment the younger sister is married: “Les sœurs se pla-
cent par rang d’âge, mais cadette mariée prend le pas sur l’aînée” ‘Sisters
are ranked by age, but the younger married one takes precedence over the
older one’ (Dufaux de La Jonchère [1878–1888]6: 203). Given the stigma
7 Precedence 303
attached to unmarried women, this demotion must have been acutely

felt. Ultimately, this point shows once more that in a social order deter-
mined by Discernment, the seating plan does not concern itself with
individual face wants. What has emerged is the fear of blundering in the
hostess and her need for tact in delicate situations where rules may clash.
However, ‘correctness’ is not inspired by a concern for facework; it is
inspired by compliance to a rule rooted in law (i.e. in the UK): guest may
be mortally offended when they are not in the correct order, but no guest
is offended because he or she occupies the lowest position, as long as it
reflects his or her correct rank.
7.4.2 Drawing-Room Precedence
Continuing the topic of seating arrangements, this section investigates

how precedence shapes the right to certain seats in the drawing-room,
going from more comfortable—the seat of honour—to less comfortable
ones. From a spatial point of view, the degree of honour is highest close
to the hostess (and the fireplace) and decreases when chairs are further
away from her.
Many sources, especially French and Italian ones, provide guidance
for interior decorating as a fundamental component of impression
management. In an etiquette book for the représentant commercial
‘sales representative’ George Vinet wants drawing-rooms to be fur-
nished with a good number of “canapés, fauteuils, chaises, poufs, tabo-
urets de formes diverses” ‘sofas, armchairs, chairs, ottomans, stools of
various shapes’ (1891: 246). Vinet’s lists goes from the most comfort-
able and spacious seats to more spartan ones, and his order perfectly
reflects passages where this ranking of seating comfort is associated
with precedence: the most comfortable one is for the host and the
guest of honour. Furthermore, the most comfortable seats surround
the fireplace, the place where the hostess is found when receiving visi-
tors during her ‘at home’ day. The hostess places the guest of honour
right next to her:
304 A. Paternoster
Une maîtresse de maison ne quitte pas non plus la place qu’elle occupe sur
son canapé, mais elle engage à s’y asseoir près d’elle la personne pour qui
elle veut avoir une attention spéciale. ‘A hostess does not leave the place she
occupies on her sofa either, but she makes sure the person for whom she
wants to have special attention is seated next to her.’ (Drohojowska,
Comtesse de 18787: 26)
However, to honour an especially distinguished guest, the hostess can

relinquish her place:
La maîtresse de maison doit prendre le fauteuil placé à la droite de la

cheminée et ne donner sa place à personne, à moins qu’elle ne reçoive un
grand personnage ou un grand parent auquel elle doive un profond respect.
‘The hostess must take the armchair placed to the right of the fireplace and
give no one her place, unless she receives an important person or relative to
whom she owes a deep respect.’ (Bassanville, Comtesse de 1867: 221 and
similar on 204)
Section 6.7 mentioned the need for tact when a visitor occupies the place
of honour on the sofa next to hostess: when a new visitor arrives, a woman
should discretely vacate the prime spot, unless she is elderly and the new
guest is a young woman. Age influences the ranking, but gender does too.
The hostess only shares her sofa with another woman—for Dufaux de La
Jonchère the sofa is “spécialement réservé” ‘specially reserved’ for women
([1878–1888]6: 72)—and her husband’s friends take place opposite her,
in a separate seat:
[…] si un homme est reçu par la femme d’un ami, il ne doit pas prendre
place auprès d’elle sur le canapé, mais bien sur une chaise ou un fauteuil en
face […]. ‘if a man is received by a friend’s wife, he must not take place next
to her on the sofa, but on a chair or an armchair opposite her.’ (Vinet
1891: 249)
Different types of seats are differently ranked. The sofa is first, then come
the armchair and the chair. Women and men are entitled to different
types of seats, as these two examples show:
7 Precedence 305
Une dame s’asseoit sur un fauteuil, un homme sur une chaise. ‘A lady sits
on an armchair, a man on a chair.’ (Bassanville, Comtesse de 1867: 191)
Quand la personne qui reçoit est l’égale ou l’intime de celle qui la visite par
exemple si c’est une dame qui reçoit une dame, elle la fait placer auprès
d’elle sur son canapé; si la dame que l’on reçoit est une connoissance moins
intime, et qu’on désire lui faire honneur, on la fait placer dans une bergère
au coin de la cheminée. Les hommes se placent indistinctement sur les
fauteuils ou les chaises. ‘When the person who receives is the equal or the
close friend of the one who visits her, for example if it is a lady who receives
a lady, the hostess places her beside her on the sofa; if the lady received is a
less intimate acquaintance, and the hostess wishes to honour her, she has
her placed in a bergère at the corner of the fireplace. The men sit indis-
criminately on armchairs or chairs.’ (Breton de La Martinière 1808: 33)
Women occupy the more comfortable seats: the sofa and a bergère; men
an armchair (fauteuil) or a chair. The difference between a bergère and a
fauteuil is that a bergère has closed upholstered panels between the arms
and the seat; it usually has a large cushion on the seat and “many consider
it the first truly comfortable chair”.4 For the men, there is a third option:
“le fauteuil étoit regardé comme le plus honorable, ensuite la chaise à dos,
enfin ce qu’on appeloit les plians” ‘the armchair was regarded as the most
honourable, then the chair, finally what was called a folding chair’ (Breton
de La Martinière 1808: 32). Note that for Breton de La Martinière this is
a dated custom as he uses the past tense. Others, however, do not indicate
the usage as obsolete. A full century later, in 1907, Chambon advises
men, young and old, to take the seats that are “les moins confortables, les
moins bien placés” ‘the least comfortable and least well positioned’ and
“les jeunes filles font de même ‘young women do the same’ (1907: 353).
This rule regarding young guests is also present in an Italian source: “[…]
né la signorina di casa né altre ragazze dovranno mai sedere sul canapé—
per esse e pei giovani sono riserbate le seggiole, gli sgabelli, i pouffs” ‘nei-
ther the young lady of the house nor other girls must ever sit on the
sofa—chairs, stools, poufs are reserved for them and for young men’
(Nevers 1883: 53). Similar passages appear in Dutch Verlaane (1911/1885)
4
See https://www.lynn-byrne.com/posts/design-dictionary-fauteuil-bergere, accessed 16.10.2021.
306 A. Paternoster
and Lessen over de wellevendheid ([Celnart, Mme] 18552/[1836]), for the

UK and the US see British How to Behave ([1865/1852]: 67) and its US
edition Roberts (1857: 70). Houghton et al. (18837/1882: 133) also
assigns seats according to gender. However, this passage by Maud Cooke
suggests that, as seen above for dining precedence, the American organis-
ing principle is age. Given the need for comfort, elderly people may want
to avoid a low armchair:
If there should be any preference with regard to seats, one suggestion is that
a lady should be seated on a couch or sofa, unless advanced in years, when
she should be asked to accept an easy chair; an elderly gentleman should be
treated in the same manner. If a young lady should be occupying a particu-
larly comfortable seat, she must at once arise and offer it to an older lady
entering the room. (Cooke 1899 [1896]: 77)
Note she talks about “preference”, not precedence, presenting the advice
as optional.
Given that the place of honour is on the sofa, beside the hostess, and
the sofa is placed by the fireplace, the result is a that the further away a
seat is from the fireplace, the less honourable it becomes: “In winter, the
most honourable places are those at the corners of the fire-place: in pro-
portion as they place you in front of the fire, your seat is considered
inferior in rank” (The Ladies’ Science of Etiquette, 18512: 18).
As a result, for this French source, a drawing-room has two prece-
dence zones:
Dès qu’il [a male guest] lui [the hostess] voit faire le mouvement de cher-
cher un siège pour le lui offrir, il s’empresse d’aller le prendre lui-même,
(une chaise ordinairement); il le place du côté de la porte d’entrée, et à
quelque distance de la personne, à laquelle il laisse ainsi ce qu’on appelait
le haut bout. ‘As soon he sees her make the movement of looking for a seat
to offer to him, he hastens to go and take it himself, (usually a chair); he
places it to the side of the entrance door, and at some distance from the
person, to whom he thus leaves what was called the top end.’ (Celnart,
Mme 18346/1832: 106–107, original emphasis)
7 Precedence 307
The haut bout of the drawing-room is nearer the fireplace and the bas bout
close to the entrance door. The distinction recalls French table plans.
More zoning of rooms in terms of precedence takes place in UK pub-
lic balls.
7.4.3 Ball-Room Precedence
This paragraph continues the topic of spatial precedence. Balls are all
about bringing young people together in order to meet a prospective
wedding candidate, and precedence principles are not particularly visible.
There is, however, one element of social rank that determines the use of
space. As seen above, British sources codify public and private balls.
Public ball-rooms have a top end and this top may be sectioned off
by a cord:
Nowhere is “class” more brought into prominence than at a “County ball,”

where there is a recognized though unwritten law, which every one obeys,
to infringe which would be a breach of etiquette, and argue a want of
knowledge of the social code observed at County balls, where each class has
its own set, and where a member of the one set, would be foolish were he
or she to attempt to invade another or a higher set. Thus, a couple belonging
to say the professional set, or strangers in the town attending the ball,
would not take their places in a quadrille at the top of the ball-room—
which is always appropriated by the aristocratic element, head stewards,
and titled patronesses—under the risk of being mortified by some act of
avoidance on the part of those whose set they had so indiscreetly
invaded. […]
At some public balls a cord is drawn across the ball-room to render the
upper end unassailable, but this extreme exclusiveness is not often resorted
to, “etiquette” and “class” being thoroughly maintained without its aid.
(Manners and Tone [1880]2/[1879]: 123–124)
Like the dining table and the drawing-room, the ball-room is zoned in
terms of precedence. The top is precisely defined, also in private balls:
“The ‘top’ of the ball-room is at the same end as the orchestra, when that
is at the end. When the music is in the middle, the ‘top’ is farthest from
308 A. Paternoster
the door” (Etiquette for Ladies [1857]: 8, original emphasis). Readers are
told it is “always of importance to remember this, as couples at the top
always take the lead in the dance” (Beeton [1876c]: 105). However, in
private balls, knowing where the top is a simple requirement to execute
the figures properly—“The point should be ascertained by the dancers, as
in all square dances the top couples lead off, and uncertainty leads to
confusion” (Modern Etiquette 1887: 104)—and it has less social meaning.
Only one source reports this hierarchic zoning of a British public ball-
room, whereas, on the continent, attending public balls is not encour-
aged. Another context where spatial precedence applies is the opera or
theatre box where the place of honour enjoys the best view of the stage:
Il posto d’onore in un palco è quello che prospetta il proscenio. Il secondo

è quello che gli volta le spalle. Il terzo è il posto di mezzo. ‘The place of
honour in a box is the one facing the stage. The second one is the one that
faces away from it. The third one is the one in the middle.’ (Bergando, Il
Conte 1882/1881: 49, in footnote)
This French source takes the position of the box into account. Is the box
to the left, to the right or in the middle of the theatre?
La place d’honneur dans une loge de face est invariablement à droite, elle
change pour le côté droit du théâtre où elle se trouve alors à gauche, ceci
s’explique par la disposition de la scène qui est ainsi plus en vue. Les femmes
prennent possession des places sur le devant, les hommes se tiennent der-
rière elles. ‘The place of honour in a box facing the stage is invariably on the
right, it changes for the righthand side of the theater where it is then to the
left, this is explained by the position of the stage, which is thus more visi-
ble. The women occupy the seats at the front, the men stand behind them.’
(Orval, Baronne d’ 19016: 450; for similar see Chambon 1907: 381)
Starting from the opera box, the spaces managed by precedence become
ever smaller. As less people are involved, the ranking principle is increas-
ingly simple. Rare are now the rules that mention a superior in rank, and
mostly precedence is given to women or to the elderly.
7 Precedence 309
7.4.4 Carriage Precedence
Moving on from interior rooms to means of locomotion, the carriage is a

confined space offering at the most four different seats, spread over two
benches, which are well defined in terms of precedence. The place of
honour affords the better view: it is consistently on the back bench of the
carriage, facing forward. The first place of honour is on the back bench to
the right, the second place of honour is to the left, the third and fourth
place are on the opposite bench. This British source quotes age and rank:
The seat facing the horses is the place of honour, and should be given to the
eldest ladies or the first in rank. The lady of the house, however, always
occupies her own seat, and should never be allowed by a guest to resign it
to her. (Modern Etiquette 1887: 30)
Baronne d’Orval provides her reader with the most elaborate set of rules:
En voiture.
Au fond de la voiture, à droite, est la place d’honneur; lorsque deux
amies ou parentes sortent ensemble et que la voiture est rangée contre le
trottoir de droite, la propriétaire de l’équipage monte la première, afin de
laisser la place d’honneur à son invitée.
Il en est de même lorsqu’un homme accompagne une femme, il doit
toujours lui laisser la droite et le cocher devra faire attention de ranger sa
voiture dans le sens voulu pour que l’homme ne soit pas forcé d’en faire
le tour.
Les places de devant sont un peu sacrifiées; on y met les enfants; un
homme doit s’y asseoir en accompagnant deux femmes.
Un père donne volontiers la place de droite à sa fille.
Lorsqu’il y a plusieurs femmes âgées et que la propriétaire de la voiture
est très jeune, elle prend une des places de devant; autrement, une femme
de qualité conserve toujours sa place. ‘In a carriage. At the back of the car-
riage, to the right, is the place of honour; when two lady friends or female
relatives go out together and the carriage has stopped against the right
sidewalk, the owner of the carriage mounts first, in order to leave the place
of honour to her guest. It is the same when a man accompanies a woman,
he must always give her the righthand seat and the coachman must be care-
310 A. Paternoster
ful to put his vehicle in the desired direction so that the man is not forced
to go around it. The front seats are so to speak abandoned; we put the
children there; a man should sit there who accompanies two women. A
father willingly gives his daughter the place on the right. When there are
more elderly women and the woman owning the carriage is very young, she
takes one of the front seats, but otherwise a woman of quality always keeps
her place.’ (Orval, Baronne d’ 19016: 456; similar in Boissieux, Comtesse
de 1877: 30; Burani: 1879: 114; Nogent, Mme de 1886: 75–76; Chambon
1907: 407)
Precedence even determines which side of the carriage is to align with the
pavement: the most honoured person mounts in second place, so to end
up on the right-hand side of the bench. The hostess has precedence over
female guests, but this is overruled by a considerable age difference. All
linguacultures under scrutiny concur on carriage precedence: Bergando,
il conte 1882/1881; Pigorini Beri 1908/1893; Houghton et al.
18837/1882; Handbook der wellevendheid of praktische gids 1855, to give
but a few examples (See Fig. 7.2).
Intricate rules govern the order of carriages and the seats within car-
riages during weddings, given that the order changes before and after the
ceremony, which determines a change in the precedence of the bride
(Burani 1879: 70). With christenings the trip to church requires three
carriages (occupied respectively by godparents, the baby with wetnurse
and midwife, parents with family members). Precedency issues arise when
there are only two carriages:
Si l’on a moins de trois voitures et que la nourrice monte dans la même

voiture avec le parrain et la marraine, ceux-ci doivent occuper la place
d’honneur, c’est-à-dire la banquette du fond,—à moins que l’enfant ne soit
celui d’un supérieur, auquel cas il faut céder à la nourrice la place du fond
à côté de la marraine. ‘If there are less than three carriages and the nurse is
seated into the same carriage with the godfather and godmother, they must
occupy the place of honour, that is to say the back bench,—unless the child
is that of a superior, in which case it is necessary to give up to the wetnurse
the place of the back bench next to the godmother.’ (Burani 1879: 82)
7 Precedence 311
Fig. 7.2 À pied, à cheval et en voiture ‘walking, riding, driving’ (Burani 1879:
115), reproduced from gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
A baby of superior rank has precedence over the godfather.

Some later sources include automobile etiquette. For Baronne D’Orval
the place of honour is on the passenger seat:
312 A. Paternoster
Ainsi que sur les mails ou sur toute autre voiture conduite par le proprié-
taire de la voiture, la place d’honneur est à côté de lui, à gauche; une femme
ne doit pas, dans aucune de ces voitures, s’asseoir à côté d’un domestique
conduisant, […]. ‘As well as on a barouche or on any other automobile
driven by its owner, the place of honour is next to him, to the left; a woman
must not, in any of these vehicles, sit next to a servant driving.’ (Orval,
Baronne d’ 19016: 457)
British and American guides provide rowing etiquette, where the place of
honour is rowing ‘stroke’ (Moore 18782: 396; Modern Etiquette 1887:
59). Just about every form of sharing a physical space, whether static or
in motion, is regulated by precedence. Below the list continues with rid-
ing and walking precedency.
7.4.5 Riding Precedence
When out and about on horseback the place of honour is to the right,
and the superior expects the inferior to help him mount:
If you are riding with a gentleman who is your superior, allow him to
mount first, and should there be no other person to hold his horse while he
does so, do it yourself. The place of honour is on the right side; but if more
than yourself accompany a man of rank, allow those next to him in rank to
ride by his side. (Etiquette for All 1861: 49)
Riding precedence is also granted to women:
À cheval.
Il faut laisser la droite du chemin aux supérieurs et aux dames avec
lesquels on peut se promener à cheval. […]
On doit laisser une tête d’avance à tous ceux à qui on veut témoigner du
respect.
Le soin de régler le pas des chevaux doit être laissé aux dames ou aux
supérieurs. ‘Riding. You must leave the right of the road to superiors and
ladies with whom you ride on horseback. […] You must leave a head start
to all those to whom you want to show respect. The care of setting the pace
of the horses should be left to the ladies or superiors.’ (Burani 1879: 113)
7 Precedence 313
Whoever has precedence leads the way and sets the speed (La Fère, Mme
de 1889: 135; Handboek der Wellevendheid of praktische gids 1855: 39).
7.4.6 Promenade Precedence
Walking precedence covers two sets of rules, one for managing the space
of the pavement, which is arguably narrow, and one for walks in parks,
where there is more space.
On the pavement, the place of honour is the safer space, that is, the
one closer to the houses and away from the traffic:
In walking with gentlemen who are your superiors in age or station, give
them the place of honour, by taking yourself the outer side of the pave-
ment. (How to Behave [1865/1852]: 96; identical in Roberts 1857: 101)
The rule is the same on the European mainland. The place of honour is
on the inside of the pavement:
Un homme poli cède le haut du trottoir à une femme; une jeune femme à
une femme âgée. ‘A polite man leaves the top end of the pavement to a
woman; a young woman to an elderly woman.’ (Chambon 1907: 304; see
also Les usages du monde 1880: 45)
Note the expressions le haut du trottoir/du pave. The ‘high end’ or top is
on the inside, towards the houses:
Dans la rue on lui [“à un supérieur”] cède le haut du pavé, c’est-à-dire le

côté des maisons; et, dans un chemin où il n’y a ni haut ni bas, on se met à
sa gauche. ‘In the street, you leave him [“a superior”] the top of the pave-
ment, that is to say, the side of the houses; and, on a path where there is
neither top nor bottom, you walk to his left.’ (G.-M. 1908: 96)
The pavement is subject to the same zoning principles as seen above for
the French dining table and drawing-room. The place of honour also
depends on the number of people walking on the pavement. If with
three, the place of honour is in the middle of the pavement:
314 A. Paternoster
En se promenant, la place d’honneur est au milieu du trottoir; à deux elle

sera du côté des maisons. ‘As you walk, the place of honour is in the middle
of the pavement; if two are walking, it will be on the side of the houses’
(Orval, baronne de 19016: 118)
A similar rule applies in a public garden. The place of honour is to the

right, when walking with two people. When walking with three, it is in
the middle. But, what to do when four walk?
Lorsque quatre personnes se promènent, la [= “place”] plus honorable est

considérée comme un centre; la seconde place est à sa droite, la troisième à
sa gauche, et la quatrième à la droite de la seconde. ‘When four people are
walking, the most honourable [place] is considered a centre; the second
place is to its right, the third to its left, and the fourth to the right of the
second.’ (G.-M. 1908: 97)
Changing direction is a complicated move from the point of view of pre-

cedence. Always make sure to execute a turn with your face to a superior:
Men lette erop, dat men bij het omkeeren op wandeling en bij andere gele-
genheden, altijd vermijdt, aan een voornamer persoon den rug toe te
keeren. ‘Care must be taken to always avoid turning one’s back on a more
distinguished person when turning around during a walk and on other
occasions.’ (Handboekje der wellevendheid [1910]: 58)
Overall, promenade precedence appears in European sources and less in

US ones, where the focus is on street etiquette, considered next.
7.4.7 Greeting Precedence
Greetings, introductions and handshakes (see the next two paragraphs)

affect precedence from the point of view of timing: who has the right to
initiate a social gesture? Greeting is usually part of street etiquette and
cross-cultural differences have been discussed in regard to the Anglo-
American ‘cut’ ritual in Sect. 6.6. The ‘cut’ is made possible by the fact
that in British and American culture superiors, women and elderly have
7 Precedence 315
Fig. 7.3 Street Etiquette (Houghton et al. 18837/1882: 94). Reproduced from
Internet.archive and Smithsonian Libraries
greeting precedence. They greet first, because ‘recognising’ the other is

perceived as a right (Fig. 7.3). On the European mainland, these catego-
ries still have precedence, but it is enacted differently in terms of per-
ceived rights and duties: inferiors, men and younger people greet first
because the greeting is seen as a deferential duty and homage to one’s
superior, to women and one’s seniors in age.
316 A. Paternoster
7.4.8 Introduction Precedence
The final two sets of precedence rules are not linked to any particular
circumstance or space, but regard transversal activities that can be slotted
into larger scripts, as modular micro-scripts. The first set regards the pre-
cedence of introductions. An introduction is an honour, which is
bestowed by the superior onto the inferior. The rule is consistent in all
languages considered: always ask the superior if he/she welcomes the
introduction and, then, always introduce inferior to superior, men to
women, younger to older persons, unknown to known (in case of a celeb-
rity). Introduction precedence has been discussed in the context of set
formulae and script lines in Sect. 5.7.
7.4.9 Handshaking Precedence
In the nineteenth century when women greet each other, they commonly
bow, and both execute the gesture at the same time. Men bow and take
their hats of. Physical contact is avoided. Mid-century UK sources still
mention curtseying, but it is usually seen as obsolete and bowing is rec-
ommended instead: “Curtseying is wholly out of fashion. A graceful bow,
in which the whole person just a little droops, is all that is now required.
It is a sort of modified curtsey, when properly done” (Etiquette for Ladies
[1857]: 20; see also How to Behave [1865/1852]: 78). The handshake is a
relatively new form of salutation. It is seen as signalling a move towards
greater closeness, it is a liminal gesture that changes the status of a rela-
tionship. Because of this, it is the superior who is entitled to ‘allow’ more
intimacy and he or she has the right to initiate this change. In other
words, only the superior can initiate a handshake, and by extension, a
woman or the elder of the two:
Un uomo non darà mai per primo la mano ad una signora. È dessa che
deve avere l’iniziativa di questo atto in virtù del noto assioma: è la regina
che parla per la prima e nei rapporti mondani la signora è regina, od almeno
essa ha la supremazia sull’uomo. E così dicasi a riguardo dei superiori ai
quali l’inferiore si guarderà bene di tendere la mano per primo, intendendo
7 Precedence 317
io di parlare anche dei superiori in età. ‘A man will never be the first to
extend his hand to a lady. It is she who must have the initiative of this act
by virtue of the well-known axiom: it is the queen who speaks first and in
society the lady is the queen, or at least she has supremacy over man. And
so it is with regard to superiors, by which I also mean superiors in age, to
whom the inferior will take care not to extend his hand first.’ (Iviglia 1907:
52; see also Parr 1892: 62 and Viroflay-Montrecourt, de 19194/[1910]: 20
for similar French and Dutch rules)
Usually when two women are introduced to each other, they only bow,
however, if “a lady of higher rank than the other were to offer to shake
hands, it would be a compliment and a mark of friendliness on her part”
(Manners and Tone [1880]2/[1879]: 44). When two men are introduced,
they usually shake hands, but precedence decides who offers his hand first:
Gentlemen almost invariably shake hands with each other on being intro-
duced. In this case the elder of the two, or the superior in social standing,
should make the first movement in offering to shake hands. (Houghton
et al. 18837/1882: 70)
If a man is introduced to a woman, it is the “privilege of the lady to be the

first to offer to shake hands, in every case, on being introduced” (Manners
and Tone [1880]2/[1879]: 45; see also Moore 18782: 84). An exception is
the mistress of the house. When receiving, she shakes hands with all her
guests, to make them feel welcome: “The guests shake hands with their
hostess as soon as they arrive” (Armstrong 1903: 45).
In mainland Europe, the handshake is less widespread and UK sources
warn their readers on this point: “On the Continent, ladies never shake
hands with gentlemen unless under circumstances of great intimacy”
(Routledge [1875?]: 2 and 36; see also The Habits of Good Society [1859]:
137). Indeed, although precedence rules are the same, in French sources
the handshake is seen as a British habit, which tends to upset the usual
French reserve: “[…] c’est encore un usage anglais, mais qui a besoin d’être
francisé, en y apportant la réserve et la modération qui caractérisent notre
goût.” ‘[…] it is still an English usage, but which needs to be Frenchified,
by bringing to it the reserve and moderation which characterise our taste’
318 A. Paternoster
(Vinet 1891: 261, original emphasis). For the anonymous Les usages du
monde, the usage has become too frequent, because the French are too
keen to copy the English:
Sous prétexte que cela se pratique en Angleterre, jusqu’à nos femmes,

aujourd’hui, qui distribuent des poignées de main! Allons donc, mesdames,
les Anglaises font ce qu’elles veulent, restez Françaises, vous. Le contact de
vos doigts mignons, leur pression plus ou moins sympathique doivent être
faveur spéciale et non banale politesse. ‘Under the pretext that this is done
in England, even our women, today, distribute handshakes! Come on,
miladies, the English ladies do what they want, you, stay French. The touch
of your cute fingers, their more or less sympathetic pressure, must be a
special favour and not banal politeness.’ (Les usage du monde 1880: 32)
The argument is that it must be a special favour granted by a superior

who wishes to express friendship, warmth, closeness. If used too fre-
quently, the special meaning will disappear.
In sum, the rules of precedence are ubiquitous. From the dining-room
to the drawing-room, from the carriage to a walk in the park, from riding
to driving, from greetings to introductions and handshakes, numerous
ordinary actions are organised in a way that the superior has the best part
of the commodities: warm food, a fire, a comfortable chair, a view, better
safety and gatekeeping powers. One last context regulated by rank is the
use of titles and nowhere is this more apparent than in letter writing.
7.4.10 Letter Writing: Expressing Deference
Most sources include a chapter on letter writing. Prescriptivism in model

letters and letter-writing manuals have been the object of detailed studies
(Chartier et al., 1997; Bannet 2005; Austin 2007; Fens-de Zeeuw 2008).
This section highlights two elements of letter-writing linked to rank: lay-
out and terms of address. Address and person mention in personal letters
from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century has been extensively
studied by Nevala (2004a, 2004b, 2005, 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c,
2010), while Dossena has worked mainly on nineteenth-century business
correspondence, see Sect. 1.3. Strictly speaking, this is not a case of
7 Precedence 319
precedence, because in a letter, the reader is not ranking several people

and singling one out for the place of honour. However, rank difference
between letter writer and his or her correspondent determines the exact
amount of deference that is to be paid. Sources that provide a table of
precedence often include elaborate sections on the correct use of titles.
Sairio and Nevala (2013) study the social dimension of epistolary lay-
out in eighteenth-century England. They use letter-writing manuals, two
of which are translations from French, comprising the courtesy book by
Antoine de Courtin cited in Sect. 2.2.1. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century manuals provide detailed instructions on letter layout as this
reflects the hierarchical difference between correspondent and recipient:
For example, the position of the date, place and signature was considered
central, particularly in manuals published from the latter half of the seven-
teenth to the end of the eighteenth century. Similarly, the size of the mar-
gins and the overall layout of the text were often meant to indicate the
social relationship of both correspondents, as was the quality of the paper
or the manner in which it was folded and sealed. (Sairio and Nevala 2013)
It is advised to use a bigger paper size and better-quality paper when

addressing superiors. For superiors it is also proper to leave a considerable
space both between the greeting and the body of the letter and between
the body of the letter and the subscription and signature, and this rules
also affects the left-side margin (Sairio and Nevala 2013). In sum, “the
greater the Person, the greater the Blank” (Sairio and Nevala 2013).
Regrettably, Sairio and Nevala (2013) do not discuss differences between
British manuals and translations from French. In my sources, the rules
provided by Courtin are not followed in American and British eti-
quette books.
In nineteenth-century France, marking deference starts with the size of
the letter paper. The size of the paper depends on the rank and age of the
addressee.
Si vous écrivez à un ministre, il faut prendre le format qui, en papeterie, est

connu sous ce nom, et la grandeur du papier que vous adopterez ira en
décroissant, suivant le rang et l’âge des personnes à qui vous avez affaire. ‘If
320 A. Paternoster
you are writing to a secretary of state, take the format which, in stationery,
is known by that name [i.e., foolscap paper], and the size of the paper you
will adopt will decrease depending on the rank and age of the people with
whom you are dealing.’ (Waddeville, Mme de 18877: 66)
The higher the rank or the older the addressee, the bigger the paper.
Dutch sources propose a classification of paper size: octavo is the usual
size; quarto is for superiors; folio for secretaries of state and royalty
(Handboekje der wellevendheid [1910]: 144). For Italian Nevers, superiors
and equals expect paper of an intermediate size (“formato mezzano”), but
for inferiors a calling card (“biglietto di visita”) suffices (1883: 149).
Deference is further expressed by the size of blank spaces. Usually, the
relationship between blank and rank is rather fixed as seen in this Italian
source for the beginning of the letter:
Per le lettere famigliari si mette l’intestazione quasi in cima della pagina,

poi la data e si comincia a poca distanza; per le lettere di cerimonia ai supe-
riori si mette il nome e titolo incirca a metà pagina, si comincia nell’ultimo
terzo, lasciando molto margine a sinistra; […]. (Ai superiori non si s crivono
che lettere, non bigliettini). ‘For familiar letters, the header is placed almost
at the top of the page, then the date and one begins a short distance away;
for ceremonial letters to superiors, the name and title are placed approxi-
mately in the middle of the page, one starts in the bottom third, leaving a
lot of margin to the left; […]. (only write letters to superiors, not notes).’
(Nevers 1883: 150)
In official petitions, deference is expressed by hardly writing anything at

all on the first page of the letter: there is a conspicuous margin to the left,
and important spaces between the top edge of the papers and the saluta-
tion, between the salutation and the body of the letter, and between the
body of the letter and the bottom edge. With familiar letters, the address
is at the top of the page and the main body of the letters follows straight
after. Some French sources, however, go even further and recommend
that the spaces left blank be directly proportionate to the difference
in rank:
7 Precedence 321
Les lettres en placet ou requête doivent être in-folio, c’est-à-dire sur une
feuille de papier dans toute son étendue; elles doivent être écrites à mi-
marge; les espaces en blanc qu’on doit laisser entre le bord supérieur du
papier et la vedette, et entre la vedette et la première ligne, sont très diffé-
rens, selon le degré d’infériorité ou de supériorité. Plus ils sont grands, plus
ils sont respectueux. […]
Pour une lettre familière, il est devenu de meilleur ton de ne plus du tout
laisser de marges. ‘Petitions or official requests must be in-folio, that is to
say on a sheet of paper in its full extent; the left margin must extend to the
middle of the page; the blank spaces that should be left between the top
edge of the paper and the salutation, and between the salutation and the
first line, are very different, depending on the degree of inferiority or supe-
riority. The bigger they are, the more respectful. […] For a familiar letter,
it has become good tone not to leave any margins at all.’ (Celnart, mme
18346/1832: 218–219 and its Dutch translation. [Celnart, mme] 18552/
[1836]: 184–185)
As late as 1907 Chambon still recommends adapting the space between

the salutation and the body of the letter to rank difference (1907: 397).
De La Fère also recommends this kind of proportionate or ‘sliding’ pre-
cedence—to repeat the term found in Clapp’s comment on the Talleyrand
anecdote (see Sect. 7.2): the bigger the difference in rank, the more space
is needed, this time at the bottom of the page:
Vous commencez votre lettre assez bas au-dessous du mot en vedette, vous
laissez beaucoup de blanc au bas de la page, d’autant plus, que le destina-
taire est plus haut placé […]. ‘You start your letter low enough below the
salutation, you leave a lot of blank at the bottom of the page, especially
with a superior recipient.’ (La Fère, Mme de 1889: 258)
La Baronne de Fresne sums it all up in a laconic simile: “[…] une grande

marge est comme un grand salut” ‘a wide margin is like a deep bow’
(18707: 43).
The custom whereby blank spaces increase with difference in rank is
noted as being particularly French and worthy of imitation in this
US source:
322 A. Paternoster
One custom of theirs [of the French] is worthy of adoption among us: to
proportion the distance between the ‘Sir’ and the first line of the letter, to
the rank of the person to whom you write. Among the French, to neglect
attending to this would give mortal offence. It obtains also in other
European nations. (The laws of etiquette or, short rules and reflection for con-
duct in society. By a gentleman. A New Edition, with Numerous Additions and
alterations. 18362. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard).
Indeed, precedence rules involving the size of paper and the extent of
blank spaces do not appear in neither US nor UK sources. The size of
paper, rather, depends on the aim of the message: quality paper for a let-
ter; women use a slightly smaller size compared to men; invitations usu-
ally require a printed card. The sources discuss blank spaces in letters, but
not in terms of precedency:
If your letter is to be a long one, you may commence as near the top of the
page as you please, there is no rule for this; for a short letter, begin propor-
tionately lower; for only a few lines arrange it so that the whole, signature
and all, will be on one page. (Beeton [1876c]: 82)
While a handful of UK sources discuss petitions, US sources do not. US

advice on margins is not linked to a concern for precedency:
The custom of leaving a blank margin on the left-hand side of each page is
now looked upon as obsolete, excepting in legal documents. No notes
should be commenced very high or very low on the page, but should be
nearer the top than the middle of the sheet. (Moore 18782: 17)
Only few years separate Moore’s book from Houghton et al., where the
width of the left margin is calculated with the overall size of the paper
in mind:
A blank margin that varies with the width of the paper should always be
left on the left hand side of each page. The margin should be perfectly even,
and should never be so wide or so narrow as to go beyond the limits of
taste. On large letter-paper it should be about an inch; on note-paper,
about three-eighths of an inch. When the sheet is quite small, a quarter of
an inch is sufficient. (Houghton et al. 18837/1882: 302, original emphasis)
7 Precedence 323
British and American sources appear to have a more functional approach

to the material aspects of letter writing: size and blank spaces are linked
to the purpose of the letter, not to the rank of the recipient.
Nevertheless, in Britain, deference is a major concern for the letter
writer. However, rather than it being expressed by the size of the paper
or its blank spaces, it is expressed by the correct title of address. The
sources provide detailed lists of titles, in dedicated chapters or addenda
to provide guidance for a social practice that is seen as compulsory
because rooted in the precedency laws discussed in Sect. 7.3. Some UK
sources include both a table of precedency and a list of terms of address
for letter writing. The anonymous Court Etiquette includes an extensive
table of precedence ([1849]: 178–196), which is echoed in the lengthy
treatment of terms of address for letters, covering no less than 37 pages
([1849]: 108–145). Of the four appendices accompanying The Book of
Fashionable life one contains a table of precedence ([1845]: 134–140),
while another one deals with Modes of addressing Personages of Distinction
([1845]: 116–130). Note that the advice is threefold: one title goes in
the letter head, one in the salutation and one in the closing formula, for
example:
Royalty.
Her majesty.
Address,
To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty.
Beginning,
Madam.
End,
I remain,
With the profoundest veneration,
Madam,
Your Majesty’s most faithful subject
and dutiful servant. (The Book of Fashionable Life [1845]: 116)
The etiquette book attributed to Eliza Cheadle is another source provid-

ing both a table of precedency (1872: 49–52) and “the forms for address-
ing persons of different ranks and the proper superscriptions” (1872: 60).
324 A. Paternoster
Her advice is only twofold. For a Duke, for example: “My Lord Duke”
and “His Grace the Duke of ” (1872: 60). Charlotte Eliza Humphrey,
who does not include a precedency ranking, lists titles for letter heads
(providing both informal and formal usages) and for salutations (18972:
151–157), and she completes her advice with terms of address for “per-
sonal speech for royalty and rank”, again with both formal and informal
usages (18972: 158–159). The latter relates to verbal address in conversa-
tion, another context where honorifics are important. Chapter IV in the
anonymous Manners and Tone of Good Society combines detailed instruc-
tions on precedency with the “colloquial application of titles” ([1880]2/
[1879]: 49–62). In sum, for British authors tables of precedency, episto-
lary address and use of titles in conversation form one organic body
of rules.
Although Dutch sources do not include tables of precedency, they pro-
vide very detailed instructions on the use of titles, a concept for which
they use the terms titulatuur and betiteling, ‘titulature’. Jonkvrouw van
Rappard takes the lists of titles needed for letter writing one step further
providing no less than four elements: the salutation, the term of address
in the body of the letter, the term of address in the signature and, finally,
on the envelope (19123/1885: 150–155). Others only give one element,
like Verlaane (1911/1885: 164–166), Viroflay-Montrecourt, de (19194/
[1910]: 62–65), the Handboek der etiquette (1903: 47), M., v. d. ([1910]8/
[1893]: 74–75) and, finally, M., v. d. ([1911]: 87–88). Sources want to
help readers who, allegedly, see the use of titles as a “struikelblok” ‘stum-
bling block’ (Handboek der etiquette 1903: 47 and M., v. d. ([1910]8/
[1893]: 73). Some are critical about the complicatedness of the system:
de Viroflay calls it “dolzinnig” ‘mad’ (Viroflay-Montrecourt, de 19194/
[1910]: 62).
More lists of titles are found in Italian sources, the longest one in
Pigorini Beri (1908/1893; see also Mantea 1897)—but no Italian source
gives systematic lists distinguishing two or three, let alone four different
titles for different parts of letters. The same observation is true for the
French sources, which rely on paper size and blank spaces to express defer-
ence (as seen above), but also on the closing formulae. Closing formulae
take into account “rang”, “âge”, “sexe”, “position” and “degré d’intimité”,
‘rank’, ‘age’, ‘gender’, ‘position’ and ‘degree of intimacy’ (Burani 1879:
7 Precedence 325
131). Given all these variables, “finir une lettre est souvant plus embarras-
sant que de l’écrire” ‘finishing a letter is often more perplexing than writ-
ing it’ (Chambon 1907: 183). Therefore, many sources give detailed
instructions and examples of closing formulae: Burani (1879: 130–131);
Les usages du monde (1880: 102–103); Nogent, Mme de (1886: 51–52);
La Fère, Mme de (1889: 267–271); Vinet (1891: 273–277); Orval, bar-
onne d’ (19016: 391–396); Chambon (1907: 183–185); Magallon, La
Comtesse de (1910: 93–95). Only Dufaux de La Jonchère dedicates a
long section to terms of address, closely followed by an equally detailed
section on closing formulae ([1878–1888]6: 151–159). US sources strictly
limit themselves to listing titles related to public office: see Moore (18782:
446 and 450–451) and Hartley (1860b: 137–138).
While there are important differences in the way different linguacul-
tures express deference to superior rank in letter writing, they all rely on
one or several elements to do it, be it paper size, size of blank spaces,
terms of address or closing formulae.
7.5 Conclusion
The objective of the current chapter was to demonstrate how precedence
shapes numerous daily situations within society etiquette, like shaking
hands, greetings, choosing seats in a carriage, walking on the pavement,
letter writing. The lengthy central section of this chapter, Sect. 7.4, has
surveyed the wide contextual range regulated by precedence. In reception-
rooms, which can contain numerous guests, precedence is called upon to
organise orderly processions, table plans, seating arrangements, which
contribute to the zoning of rooms and tables into an honourable and a less
honourable zone. Even a confined space like an opera or a theatre box does
not escape this principle, which also affects locomotion: carriages, rowing
boats, riding, even walking. The street forms the backdrop for the prece-
dence of greeting, while other, more transversal social practices like intro-
ductions and handshakes are also sequenced according to precedence.
Because of ranking, rooted in the aristocratic ideology of birth privilege,
the higher in rank receives the best part of the commodities—warm and
choice pieces of food, a fire, a comfortable chair, a good view, a safer spot,
326 A. Paternoster
gatekeeping powers—while the lowest in rank has none, like the Italian
priest visiting his archbishop, waiting in the anteroom, on his feet all the
time, not being able to dispose of his own time. The Talleyrand anecdote
with its ‘sliding’ scale of deference shows that the uneven treatment of the
lowest in rank is treated as the norm, not as impolite. Hosts and hostesses
sorting out dinner arrangements worry about ‘mortally’ offending a guest
by putting him or her in the wrong place, they do not worry about insult-
ing the person who happens to be in the least honourable position. The
sources do not contain a critical discourse on this asymmetrical distribu-
tion of rights: only Clapp finds Talleyrand rude, but I noted that she had
to omit his friendly smiles to make her argument work, wrenching it, so
to say, from context. Another important argument that dissociates prece-
dence ranking from impoliteness towards the lower in rank (in line with
the case for Potestas argued by Ridealgh and Unceta Gómez 2020) is the
fact that precedence is rooted in law, with explicit references to Acts,
Letters Patent and imperial decrees in British and French sources. The
omnipresence of precedence in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
etiquette sources strengthens the argument that large sways of social inter-
action is still regulated by Discernment. The effects of precedence are not
limited to the social elite, the examples of the labourer and the parish
priest in Sect. 7.2 are eloquent enough in this respect.
That is not to say that other factors, like social distance, age and gender
are not relevant. Given that, for letters, the focus was on formal titles of
address and the elaborate lists provided, I have not mentioned instances
where sources discuss terms of endearment, cher in French, with or with-
out the possessive pronoun (Nogent, mme de 1886: 50) and dear for UK
and US English, again with or without the possessive pronoun (Etiquette
for All 1861: 40; Moore 18782: 17–18), caro and the possessive pronoun
for Italian (Mantea 1897: 135), lieve of beste in Dutch where the Latin
vocative amice ‘dear friend’ is also recommended (Viroflay-Montrecourt,
de 19194/[1910]: 60). Terms of endearment are reserved for friends and
family. It is understood that the addition of a term of endearment is only
possible with equals:
Les formules d’introduction pour une lettre entre égaux sont: Monsieur,
Madame ou Mademoiselle. Si l’on est en relations assez intimes, on mettra
7 Precedence 327
cher monsieur, ou cher monsieur et ami, chère madame ou chère madame

et amie, etc., et non mon cher monsieur, ma chère madame. ‘The saluta-
tion formulas for a letter between equals are: Monsieur [sir], Madame
[madam] or Mademoiselle [miss]. If we are in a close enough relationship,
we will put cher monsieur [dear sir], or cher monsieur et ami [dear sir and
friend], chère madame [dear madam] or chère madame et amie [dear madam
and friend], etc., and not mon cher monsieur [my dear sir], ma chère madame
[my dear madam].’ (Nogent, mme de 1886: 50)
Cher, Chère tout court ne se disent qu’aux égaux. ‘Cher, Chère [dear] on
their own are only used with equals.’ (Chambon 1907: 94)
Nowadays, these are the salutations that have survived, whereas the ones
expressing deference to a superior have all but disappeared. When defer-
ence to rank was felt to be less important, expressions related to rank will
have been felt as irrelevant and old-fashioned. What survives is the way
the salutation was already regulated between people of equal rank, which
was based on social distance. Dining precedence and its ritual proces-
sions are an important barometer to gauge variety. As its rules are so
precisely articulated, they allow to capture subtle cross-cultural differ-
ences. British and French sources have two systems. One for rank differ-
ence and one for guests of similar rank. In the first case, aristocratic rank
and its republican substitute, public office, decide on minute differences;
in the second case, age prevails, or the wish to honour a stranger, or a
bride, granting hosts room for making individual choices. Note that this
double system was still mentioned in French sources from 1907 to 1910.
The UK system for guests of similar rank is retained by American sources,
which hardly ever mention public office. Italian and Dutch sources do
not include a double precedence system: they refer to age, and the rather
fluid notion of social position, without mentioning exact hierarchies. In
sum, Britain is most conservative, the US is most individualistic as it
allows choices by the hosts, and in the middle are countries, France, Italy
and the Netherlands, with a more fluid system. These are the countries
where the creation of the notables/notabili/patriciers created a composite
ruling class whose influence long outlasted the Napoleonic period.
328 A. Paternoster
In certain areas of politeness, it is not the case that a system granting

precedence or power based on hierarchy was replaced by an entirely new,
more individualistic system based on age, gender and social distance.
Rather, that part of the hierarchical system regulating interaction between
equals was expanded at the detriment of asymmetrical interaction. At the
same time, hierarchical power based on birth right was, in some coun-
tries, already replaced by the more fluid notion of social position. In the
nineteenth century, usages intended for interaction between equals are
expanding; today social hierarchy has abandoned Western daily life and
its influence is limited to institutional contexts—diplomatic, parliamen-
tary, military, presidential and royal protocol—and the semi-institutional
context of corporate and global etiquette. Where hierarchy is in retreat, it
makes way for interactions regulated by those Discernment rules origi-
nally intended for interaction between equals. Of course, a lot more
research is needed to verify this hypothesis, while this book had the aim
to chart a social order in which Discernment is still regulating social
interaction of private life, and is prescribed as the norm by sources up
until World War I.
This raises the following question. Has the link between Discernment
and etiquette already been eroded in the nineteenth century? There are
two approaches in defining Discernment: one privileging the scripted
nature of conventions and rituals (Kádár and Mills 2013) and one which,
on top of the scripted and schematic nature, allocates more weight to
social hierarchy (Ridealgh and Jucker 2019; Ridealgh and Unceta Gómez
2020). Because of the importance of precedence in nineteenth-century
sources, I see ‘etiquette’ as a first-order term for Discernment, covering
both the scripted and schematic nature (explored in Chaps. 5 and 6) and
the importance of superior-subordinate dynamic (explored in Chap. 7).
However, this chapter has formulated some arguments that undermine
the presence of Discernment. The argument that American hosts need not
worry so much about dining precedence indicates that for some the prece-
dence script is less stringent. The argument about social position replacing
a strict feudal hierarchy indicates that in some countries rank is losing
weight as a criterium to organise social life. One of the limitations of this
7 Precedence 329
study is that is has not given enough consideration to counterarguments.

However, despite these counterarguments, rules for precedence are ubiq-
uitous, even in early twentieth-century sources.
Finally, my working definition already incorporates a reference to rank
and does not need another adaptation. Chapter 8 provides some provi-
sional concluding remarks: it compares historical findings with present-
day etiquette discourse, to verify if present-day ‘etiquette’ can still be
understood as a first-order term for Discernment.
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330 A. Paternoster

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8
Concluding Remarks
8.1 Introduction
From Chap. 3 onwards, every chapter has considered the definition of
nineteenth-century etiquette. Mainly deriving from first-order and emic
findings, the definition is data-driven and discursive as it acknowledges
the various semantic traits found in the analysis of the metasources:

admission into the social elite. Although itself of an amoral nature, eti-
quette derives morality from politeness, the moral virtue of fraternal love,
which young adults and the upwardly mobile are supposed to have acquired
previously. Originating in court protocol, etiquette expresses close adher-
ence to social hierarchy and is organised in terms of recurring social (i.e.,
private and institutional) circumstances such as visits, dinners, balls, court
All hyperlinks in this chapter were accessed 24.5.2022.
338 A. Paternoster
presentations, for which it provides complicated, detailed scripts. Because

etiquette is at the same time highly compulsory and complicated, it
generates feelings of unease in the etiquette learner, going from embarrass-
ment to anxiety, which may be addressed by ease and tact.
Because the definition is based on etiquette manuals, I have argued for

the proto-scientific nature of the definition. That authors made metacog-
nitive claims, were consistent in charting usages and expressed cross-
cultural awareness strengthens the argument. This should allow for the
use of the definition on a second-order level, to position etiquette as a
fully fledged theoretical concept within politeness studies. Politeness
scholars such as Mills, Spencer-Oatey and Kádár have already made
important steps in this direction.
The question I ask here is, can Discernment still be a useful concept to
describe present-day etiquette? Chapter 5 has formulated the hypothesis
of an enduring link between Discernment and contemporary etiquette
building on the intercultural approach by Kádár and Mills, who applied
the concept of Discernment to “courtrooms”, “formal business meet-
ings”, “certain political settings” (2013: 152), a set of formal contexts to
which I added royal, presidential, military and diplomatic protocol. I see
nineteenth-century etiquette as a bridge or the ‘missing link’ between the
social practices of the ancien régime and the twenty-first-century practices
of Discernment identified by Kádár and Mills (2013). Chapter 5 has
anticipated that changes between the nineteenth and the twenty-first
centuries regard the type of contexts codified by Discernment: etiquette
has expanded substantially into the semi-institutional settings of business
etiquette. Almost every etiquette academy I have come across offers
courses in both society and business etiquette. Today’s society etiquette
only survives in special occasions like formal dining, weddings, funerals,
whereas in the nineteenth century, it regarded daily circumstances. One
notable exception are etiquette courses for children and teenagers, which
offer more elementary (even Erasmian) type of manners for daily con-
texts, like table manners, hygiene, dress, conversation and cyber civility.
The changing terminology reflects this move away from society etiquette.
Instead of society etiquette, social etiquette is preferred. But whilst there
is a clear shift in relevant contexts, it is important to see if the concept
8 Concluding Remarks 339
itself stays the same. Do characteristics of nineteenth-century etiquette as

a historically and geographically situated manifestation of Discernment
still apply to today’s vast etiquette discourse, whether that is as paper
publications, online guidance or tuition delivered by training academies?
For reasons of space, and given the abundance of material, rather than
initiating another fully fledged analysis (which would be welcome at
some point in the future), I will only make limited forays into present-
day etiquette and work with examples. Again for reasons of space, this
final survey will work mainly with Anglo-American sources.
Abrutyn and Carter (2014) compare three different editions of Emily
Post’s manual, the first one from 1922, a 1937 one and a recent one from
2011. The authors investigate if a more diverse and multi-cultural society
leads to less stringent and particularised rules. The analysis focusses on
the following elements:
1. Normative focus (representing dimensions of specific vs. general soci-

etal norms)
2. Degree of conformity (representing dimensions of demanding vs.
encouraging expectations for conformity)
3. Severity of sanctions (representing dimensions of extreme vs. moderate
behavioural sanctions) (Abrutyn and Carter 2014: 358, origi-
nal emphasis)
While 1 and 2 regard the scripted and compulsory aspect of etiquette,

3 regards fear of blundering. In the three cases, the authors observe
change, whereby etiquette moves towards less detailed and less coercive
norms leading in turn to less extreme sanctions. However, my findings
for contemporary etiquette, albeit patchy, do not always coincide with
theirs. It is relatively easy to find material that contradicts their hypoth-
esis. As they use an American source Abrutyn and Carter (2014) do not
talk about rank as a determining aspect of etiquette, not even for the
1922 first edition. As seen in Chap. 7, there are nowadays two theoretical
approaches to Discernment, one that focusses on its compulsory and
schematic aspect and one that gives more weight to the superior-
subordinate dynamic. It will be important to verify if either of these views
are still applicable to etiquette.
340 A. Paternoster
8.2 Etiquette and Inclusivity

The customary and the normative aspect of etiquette appeared early on in
my investigation and they form the opening lines of the definition:

admission into the social elite.
It is safe to say that these tenets still hold. Etiquette still consists of rules,
which must be learned in dedicated training academies. As regards elit-
ism, there is far more social mobility in the West than there was in the
nineteenth century. Furthermore, Abrutyn and Carter rightly point out
that the social divide is nowadays expressed rather by “consumption pat-
terns, residential, educational, and/or occupational prestige, and other
aspects of lifestyle patterns” rather than by correct manners (2014: 372).
Notwithstanding, the gatekeeping issue remains relevant: the ambiguity
that characterised historical etiquette in this respect has not gone away.
On the one hand, present-day etiquette discourse provides guidance to
help the uninitiated thrive in a business environment (e.g., covering the
business lunch or appropriate dress for a job interview); on the other
hand, the very existence of business etiquette, that is, fixed, rigid expecta-
tions for a certain behaviour, which are based on middle-class norms (e.g.
for the business lunch or business attire), may function as a ratification
test putting anyone having had an upbringing outside the middle class at
a disadvantage. These are white middle-class norms, and there is increas-
ing awareness that the notion of professionalism itself is biased in white-
ness (Gray 2019). When it comes to etiquette tuition, the gatekeeping is
tangible in the pricing of courses and personal consultancy. While much
online information is accessible free of charge, these etiquette ‘pills’ have
a limited scope. They function, it is fair to say, as marketing instruments,
encouraging the user to make a purchase: buying a book, enrolling in an
etiquette course. The English Manner, a training academy,1 gives exact
1
https://www.theenglishmanner.com/.
prices: the Business Protocol course is priced at £200 covering three hours
of online group tuition; for Dining Etiquette the choice is between an
online group course, at £125 per person, and private tuition starting at
£700. The Accademia Svizzera di Etiquette e Buone Maniere ‘The Swiss
Academy for etiquette and good manners’ is based in Lugano and charges
190 CHF for a three-hour group tutorial on fine dining, while their busi-
ness course is priced at 240 CHF, again for a three-hour group session.2
Peerless Etiquette, a Florida-based etiquette academy, charges US$ 500 to
apply for the finishing programme, US$ 1500 for a one-hour consulta-
tion and US$ 5000 for a personal assessment.3 Writing in The Guardian,
Aida Edemariam quotes eyewatering figures, valid in 2017:
On the personal side, a two-day Young Achiever Essentials Course (greet-

ings and small talk, presenting yourself with confidence and poise, and
dining essentials—correct tableware, eating challenging foods) can set you
back £2,350 before VAT.
If you take the Professional Finishing School programme, then inter-
view skills, networking, netiquette and social media, international eti-
quette, and business wardrobe essentials are yours for £2,500.
(Edemariam 2017)
The pricing is clearly aimed at the well-to-do middle-class public.

The pricing shows an exclusive target public. How inclusive is etiquette
as a business? The etiquette entrepreneur is predominantly female. Most
of the Twitter accounts listed in Chap. 1 are run by women who use
Twitter to publicise their coaching and consultancy services. Notable
exceptions are the male descendants of Emily Post and the Royal Butler,
Grant Harrold. Many women pursue successful professional careers in
etiquette, just like the female journalists writing on etiquette at the turn
of the century. Of the ten books on business etiquette recommended by
Wallstreetmojo (see Chap. 1),4 eight are written by women, one by two
male and two female authors, and only one by a man. Whilst the eti-
quette business is a champion of breaking the glass ceiling for women,
2
https://www.accademiasvizzeraetiquette.ch/.
3
https://www.peerlessetiquette.com/.
4
https://www.wallstreetmojo.com/etiquette-books/.
342 A. Paternoster
there is only one concern, that this situation continues to echo some of
the ambiguity characterising the feminisation of historical etiquette.
Historically, women were able to publish on etiquette because the male
establishment let them occupy a field that was considered quintessen-
tially female. Even now, women appear associated with etiquette coach-
ing because social skills are perceived as ‘soft’ skills, that is, representing
the stereotypical nurturing and homemaking nature of women. Etiquette
entrepreneurs are predominantly white. I know of four academies run by
black women: The School of Etiquette,5 and Polished Manners,6 both
London-based; Florida-based Peerless Etiquette;7 Arizona-based
Etiquette Plus.8
What about the inclusivity of etiquette discourse? Many feel it is elit-
ist. Marbella-based Tiktokker @sofia.marbella posts on etiquette and has
2.2 million followers. The comment section of her posts is revealing:
while many comments express appreciation, at least as many criticise her
advice as being inherently classist because it requires disposable income
and disposable time, two commodities many followers simply do not
have access to.9 When it comes to gender imbalance in the workplace,
rules giving precedence to women—known as ‘benevolent sexism’ to dis-
tinguish it from hostile sexism—have disappeared, as a result of second-
wave feminism denouncing chivalry, where women are seen as weak and
in need of male protection. This can be seen in rules for making introduc-
tions. While social introductions still give precedence to women, in a
professional setting precedence is given to higher rank within the com-
pany hierarchy (see Sect. 8.4). Advice regarding sexual harassment is
addressed in business etiquette,10 but not very frequently. Same-sex wed-
dings have a strong presence as an etiquette topic. Lifestyle guru Martha
5
https://theschoolofetiquette.com/.
6
https://www.polishedmanners.co.uk/.
7
https://www.peerlessetiquette.com/.
8
http://facebook.com/EtiquettePlus.
9
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8oysdYk/.
10
See, for example, https://professionalglobaletiquette.com/f/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace.
Stewart gives etiquette rules for same-sex weddings.11 Weddings have

very traditional roles, so frequent questions go from who proposes to who
to who pays for what, who walks down the ail first, who gives who away
at church, what about best man and maid of honour? A search on Google
provides an abundance of online etiquette advice, in different languages.
The Emily Post Institute proposes a podcast called Coming Out at Work
with Etiquette Expert Steven Petrow.12 There appears to be a wide-spread
interest into topics related to the LGBT+ community.
Generally, the need to embrace diversity is seen as part of business
etiquette. Candace Smith’s blog Etiquette for the Business of Live includes
a post called Etiquette and Cultural Diversity where she wants her readers
“to celebrate cultural diversity and to aim for acceptance and understand-
ing in all interactions”.13 The Skills Portal, which is South-Africa-based,
includes a business course on Business Etiquette and Diversity, with top-
ics including cross-cultural communication, gender, grooming and gen-
erational differences.14 Inclusion is action-geared and comprises strategies
to actively promote a diverse workforce. “Inclusion etiquette”, also called
“inclusivity etiquette”, “refers to respectful communication and interac-
tion with people who may not have the same characteristics as someone
else”,15 especially in the case of people with disabilities. Rather than being
a topic treated on commercial websites, this type of etiquette advice is
found on websites of non-profit organisations. The page called ‘Etiquette:
Interacting with People with Disabilities’ is found on the website of
US-based RespectAbility, a “diverse, disability-led nonprofit that works
to create systemic change in how society views and values people with
disabilities”.16 This etiquette advice is also found on company websites
11
https://www.marthastewart.com/7874590/same-sex-wedding-etiquette-questions-answered?.
See also this post by an etiquette coach on Hitched, https://www.hitched.co.uk/wedding-planning/
organising-and-planning/same-sex-weddings/.
12
https://emilypost.com/podcast/episode-19-coming-out-at-work-with-etiquette-expert-steven-
petrow.
13
https://www.candacesmithetiquette.com/cultural-diversity.html.
14
https://www.skillsportal.co.za/train/training_providers/course/staff-training/business-etiquette-
and-diversity.
15
https://diverseminds.co.uk/7-ways-inclusive-language-creates-belonging-at-work/.
16
https://www.respectability.org/inclusion-toolkits/etiquette-interacting-with-people-with-
disabilities/.
344 A. Paternoster
who want to put “diversity and inclusion into practice”, like Axel Springer,
a German publishing house, providing print and digital media. Axel
Springer’s Global Diversity & Inclusion team provides a workplace guide
called Disability Etiquette.17 Institutional bodies promote disability eti-
quette, such as Cambridge University18 and various Trusts within the UK
National Health Service, for example, the Online Inclusion Training on
Disability Etiquette offered by the University Hospitals Birmingham
NHS Foundation Trust.19 English County Councils provide guidance on
disability etiquette, such as Dorset County Council.20 In sum, while
inclusion etiquette is sometimes discussed on commercial websites under
the heading of business etiquette, more material is available from web-
sites run by non-profit or governmental organisations. To acknowledge
the important online presence of inclusion etiquette is a fundamental
correction to the prevailing view of etiquette as being a frivolous set of
rules for the happy few and a powerful counterargument to put the gate-
keeping function into perspective.
When it comes to coerciveness, one example suffices to confirm the
stringent nature of the rules. This is not suggestive advice; these are firm
proscriptions. The Cambridge University etiquette guide for meeting and
working with disabled people includes the following language rules:
• Don’t use ‘the disabled’ or ‘the blind’, this defines people by their
impairment and implies that members of these groups are all the same;
do use ‘disabled people’, ‘blind’ or ‘visually impaired people’.
• Medical terms (‘spastic’, ‘quadriplegic’ for example) don’t reflect peo-
ple’s abilities; they may reflect negative attitudes. If a person’s condi-
tion needs to be referred to, then they are ‘a person with dyslexia’
or whatever.
• Disabled people are not ‘abnormal’; non-disabled people are
not ‘normal’.
17
https://www.diversity.axelspringer.com/disability-etiquette-1.
18
https://www.disability.admin.cam.ac.uk/about-drc/etiquette.
19
https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/coronavirus-staff/supporting-colleagues-disabilities-long-term-health-
condition-covid-19.htm.
20
https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/documents/35024/284549/Disability+Etiquette+Guide.
pdf/178a5b9f-c5a1-6c5a-7f92-4c00c6330fea.
• Disabled people are not ‘brave’, ‘afflicted’, ‘victims’ or ‘tragic’, and they
don’t ‘suffer’ from anything, but they do experience discrimination
and other negative attitudes.21
The rules are as specific and detailed as the ones seen for nineteenth-
century society etiquette. It focusses on the use of specific words because
“apparently insignificant details of behaviour and language can offend
disabled people, as they often reinforce discrimination and inaccurate
assumptions”.22 This statement underlines the need for detailed rules,
and that is why I consider the term ‘etiquette’ perfectly adequate in this
context.
In a similar vein, Abrutyn and Carter (2014) propose a quantitative
analysis of definite adverbs of frequency (‘never’, ‘always’), modal auxil-
iary verbs (‘must’ and ‘should’) and verbs of requirement (‘demand’) in
commands. They compare frequencies in the three editions of Emily
Post’s etiquette manual under study. The frequency of ‘never’ and ‘always’
is down, ‘must’ is down while ‘should’ is up and the verb ‘demand’ disap-
pears altogether (Abrutyn and Carter 2014: 365). This leads them to
conclude that the first edition is “more absolutist”, while the 18th is more
“suggestive” (Abrutyn and Carter 2014: 365–366). My anecdotical evi-
dence of today’s etiquette, however, includes both absolutist rules and
suggestive recommendations. The etiquette blogger Candace Smith
introduces etiquette as follows on the homepage:
The term “etiquette rules” may give the impression of a set of rigid guide-
lines, but they are actually situational and a reliable personal assistant in
living your “business of life” with kindness and civility.23
The reference to ‘kindness and civility’ suggests a move towards less strin-
gent rules (on in/civility as contemporary first-order terms see Sifianou
2019). However, the Cambridge University guidance on disability eti-
quette seen above clearly contradicts this with a long list of specific dos
21
22
23
https://www.candacesmithetiquette.com/.
346 A. Paternoster
and don’ts. Etiquette is still presented as the “correct” way of doing things:
there is no grey area, behaviour is either correct or not. Debrett’s Handbook
has a subtitle British Style, Correct Form, Modern Manners (Wyse 2014).
A lot more research is needed to see what tendency is prevailing and
whether certain areas within etiquette are more rigid than others.
Arguably, disability etiquette is strict because it is rooted in discrimina-
tion law, and this situation repeats the historical context, whereby prece-
dence was binding because rooted in law.
8.3 Etiquette and Morality

My historical definition distinguishes between amoral etiquette and
moral politeness:
Although itself of an amoral nature, etiquette derives morality from polite-

ness, the moral virtue of fraternal love, which young adults and the
upwardly mobile are supposed to have acquired previously.
This relationship between etiquette and politeness still has currency in

today’s etiquette; if anything, moral values appear to be more often
invoked than in historical etiquette. Many etiquette websites mention
the need for respect and empathy in their home pages. On its homepage
the Emily Post Institute introduces itself as “America’s source for etiquette
based on consideration, respect & honesty”.24 Also on the homepage, the
Institute’s weekly podcasts are promoted in identical terms: “Join hosts
Lizzie Post & Daniel Post Senning as they answer audience questions and
discuss modern day etiquette through the lens of consideration, respect
and honesty”. This claim returns in the About Section, with the following
mission statement:
Above all, manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. Being
considerate, respectful, and honest is more important than knowing which
24
https://emilypost.com/.
fork to use. Whether it’s a handshake or a fist bump, it’s the underlying
sincerity and good intentions of the action that matter most.25
Finally, morality is at the centre of the Institute’s definition of etiquette,

which distinguishes between the formal aspect (called good manners,
which are “ever-changing”) and the “philosophy of etiquette”, which is
“timeless and everlasting” as it always covers the same fundamental prin-
ciples of etiquette”, that is, “consideration, respect, and honesty”. The
page then offers definitions for the latter three principles, with extracts
taken from Emily Post’s original etiquette book (19232/1922) and adds
two more, graciousness and kindness.26 In a nutshell, this definition
reproduces the distinctions typical of nineteenth-century etiquette books,
only, the terms are inverted: the “ever-changing” aspect of good manners
regards the nineteenth-century conventions of etiquette rules and the
eternal “philosophy of etiquette” equals nineteenth-century politeness as
a moral virtue. As such, it is interesting how much effort is spent under-
lining the moral basis of etiquette. The British School of Excellence, an
etiquette training academy, sees etiquette in a similar way: “Respect,
kindness and consideration sit at the very heart of modern etiquette and
these principles should inform our conduct and behaviour at all times”.27
Lugano-based Accademia Svizzera Etiquette e Buone Maniere takes
inspiration from ethics. The presentation of their etiquette courses refers
to a need for “la civile convivenza” ‘civility’ and cites Kant: “Kant soste-
neva, infatti, che la libertà non consiste nel fare tutto senza regole ma al
contrario nell’avere la determinazione di agire nel rispetto delle condizioni
morali convenzionalmente riconosciute” ‘Kant argued, indeed, that free-
dom does not consist in doing everything without rules, but, on the con-
trary, in having the determination to act with respect for recognised
conventions governed by moral conditions’. Good manners and etiquette,
therefore, contribute “alle comuni ‘norme di rispetto’, convivenza e corte-
sia nei rapporti con gli altri” ‘to the common rules of respect, civility and
25
https://emilypost.com/about/the-emily-post-institute.
26
https://emilypost.com/about/definition-of-etiquette-consideration-respect-and-honesty.
27
https://thebritishschoolofexcellence.com/.
348 A. Paternoster
politeness in relations with others’.28 The reference to moral virtues remains

part and parcel of contemporary etiquette discourse and is often made in
prominent sections of websites where companies present themselves such
as the about sections or on the home page. But then again, Curtin’s argu-
ment for Victorian etiquette still rings true: what company is going to say
that they do not care about moral values?
Having said that, not all etiquette brands refer to morality. Debrett’s,
to quote a leading company, does not refer to morality at all. The ‘About
us’ section of the website, under the heading ‘What we believe in’, con-
tains the following statement:
But we also look forward to a dynamic world of personal ambition and

achievement, where success is attainable and social skills are indispensable.
We want to share our established expertise on correct form, etiquette and
modern manners, giving people the confidence to fulfil their full potential.29
For Debrett’s etiquette and correctness lead to personal success, it is not

about developing altruism, and this is confirmed by their mission state-
ment: “To share our expertise on social skills and self-assurance as widely as
possible, equipping new generations with the confidence to succeed…”.30
Nineteenth-century etiquette presented a variety of attitudes towards
morality, and Debrett’s mission is similar to those sources that did not
entertain possible links with morality and politeness.
8.4 Etiquette Organisation

My etiquette definition quotes two organising principles, social hierarchy
or precedence, besides social circumstances:
Originating in court protocol, etiquette expresses close adherence to social

hierarchy and is organised in terms of recurring social (i.e., private and
28
https://www.accademiasvizzeraetiquette.ch/corso-galateo-e-buone-maniere-per-adulti-svizzera/.
29
https://debretts.com/about-us/.
30
https://debretts.com/about-us/.
institutional) circumstances such as visits, dinners, balls, court presenta-

tions, for which it provides complicated, detailed scripts.
That present-day etiquette offers guidance for different social circum-

stances has been discussed in Chap. 1. Once part of essential circum-
stances—in Sect. 5.1 they were found to be present in all of the six sources
under investigation—visits now fall completely outside etiquette rules,
probably because they are considered part of informal social occasions.
Fine dining survives as a special occasion, but has morphed into the busi-
ness lunch, a fixed feature of business etiquette. The range of circum-
stances covered by society etiquette has been eroded, but etiquette enjoys
a very firm presence in the business and corporate environment, which,
in turn, shows an important overlap with protocol, which is catering for
institutional events. This situation reflects the fact that society etiquette,
business etiquette and protocol (royal, presidential, parliamentary, diplo-
matic, military) all share a common origin in court protocol and that
there are many overlaps between rules and contexts, be they private,
semi-institutional or outright institutional.
What about precedence and social hierarchy as the second organising
principle of historical etiquette? Western dinner etiquette still includes
rules for seating the guest of honour.31 When drawing up a seating
arrangement for a big celebration, it is fiendishly hard not to offend peo-
ple. Table planning software allows to sort or rank guests by precedence
and by seniority.32 For family gatherings, this type of ranking is mainly
based on age, family ties or social distance. However, both semi-
institutional and institutional contexts have a rigid hierarchical organisa-
tion and precedence rules are firmly based on rank alone. In official
encounters, diplomatic precedence is based on seniority of service: the
longest serving diplomate has the highest rank as established by the 1961
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The order is established by
the exact date in which duties are assumed and, specifically, when the
credentials are presented, not to the head of state, but to the Chief of
31
See for example https://www.hollyholden.com/previous-mmm-newsletters/2019/11/3/where-do-
you-seat-your-guest-or-guests-of-honor-at-a-dinner-table.
32
See for example https://www.perfecttableplan.com/.
350 A. Paternoster
Protocol (who receives a copy of the credentials usually the day after the
ambassador’s arrival). The US precedency list, for example, shows the dif-
ferent classes of diplomates; within every class, diplomates are ranked in
terms of a date, which is shown next to their name.33 And so it happens
that the Ambassador of Palau, with a population of 18,000, leads the US
precedence list, because he was appointed in 1997. Processions are still an
important part of institutional life, for Opening of Parliament, or
National Holidays.34 The position reflects power and generally impor-
tance of institutions. In 2015, the then Secretary of State of the Belgian
Home Office, Jan Jambon, requested that the representatives of the
Flemish and French-speaking Communities move up from position 19
and precede their federal colleagues because, in his view, the existing
order did no longer reflect the increasing political weight and influence of
the Communities.35 In 2016 the attempt to change the order was aborted.
In April 2021 the hashtags #chairgate and #sofagate circulated widely on
Twitter. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission,
and Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, were both
guests of Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan. When they arrived in the
palace there was only one central sofa available next to Erdogan. Michel
took that sofa while von der Leyen, obviously taken by surprise, had to
take a lateral sofa. Many journalists saw that as a lack of chivalry in Michel
and a misogynist slight in Erdogan. Protocol experts, however, pointed
out that protocol is exclusively based on rank and not on gender. In the
protocol, as established by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, the European Council
has precedency over the European Commission, therefore, strictly speak-
ing, von der Leyen was in the correct seat.36 In a speech to the European
Parliament, von der Leyen herself judged the incident as sexist
33
https://www.state.gov/diplomatic-corps-order-of-precedence-and-dates-of-presentation-
of-credentials/.
34
For the Belgian order of precedence, see https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_Préséance_in_
België; for the Flemish order of precedence see https://overheid.vlaanderen.be/
protocollaire-rangordes.
35
https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/minister-jambon-wil-protocollaire-rangorde-herzien-
deelstaten-moeten-voorrang-krijgen-op-federale-collega-s~bb9eab09/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2
Fwww.google.it%2F.
36
See https://twitter.com/driecel/status/1379772874647568387, a Twitter thread by protocol
expert Diana Rubio.
behaviour.37 The following is a personal anecdote. A female pro-vice

chancellor of a Swiss university told me the story of how she suggested
she and the Vice-Chancellor, who was a man, switch to the informal
address pronoun. He accepted, but said—to her surprise—that he should
have been the one suggesting the move towards greater familiarity. As
above, gender or chivalry clash with rank, but rank is seen as prevailing in
an institutional setting. Business settings also apply hierarchical ranking.
When making professional introductions, always introduce to whoever
has the highest rank in the company hierarchy.38 Both in semi-institutional
and in institutional settings, precedence and social hierarchy are para-
mount in ranking “the order of the flags, assigning the seats and the order
of the speeches” as stated on the website of the Protocolbureau, a Dutch
company specialising in corporate and institutional protocol.39 As a
result, it is safe to say that these contexts are still governed by Discernment,
whether we understand Discernment only as scripted and schematic
behaviour, or whether we want to include the added reference to the
superior-subordinate relationship.
8.5 Etiquette and Unease

Working with contemporary etiquette manuals, Sara Mills links their
success to the “unease about ‘getting it right’ in politeness terms, in cer-
tain situations” (2017: 60). The need to address unease was very present
in historical etiquette sources and it concludes my definition:
Because etiquette is at the same time highly compulsory and complicated,

it generates feelings of unease in the etiquette learner, going from embar-
rassment to anxiety, which may be addressed by ease and tact.
37
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56896734.
38
https://etiquipedia.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-art-of-modern-introductions.html?spref=tw.
39
https://protocolbureau.com/information-protocol/preseance/.
352 A. Paternoster
As Mills indicates, the fear of blundering has not subsided in the twenty-
first century. This letter addresses an agony uncle who runs a (satirical)
agony aunt column:
Dear Mister Etiquette:

When I sit down to eat at a fancy affair, I get confused about what sil-
verware to use and which glasses to drink from. Do you have any advice
that can help me not make a fool of myself when I am at an event like this?
Not wishing to make a faux pas.40
The context is ironical: you must be very privileged indeed to be able to

worry about silverware and multiple glasses. Present-day etiquette com-
panies justify their commercial products by the claim they will avoid
blunders. Candace Smith’s blogpost “How to Avoid Dining Faux Pas”
dispenses advice on table manners to avoid “chaos and confusion”. Smith
claims that following table manners will allow the diner to stay “under
the radar”, that is, avoid being noticed as someone unfamiliar with the
rules.41 Diners must learn the rules because meals should not be
“stressful”.42 An article run by the Independent newspaper on the British
etiquette of gratuities—called ‘The Tipping Point’—aims to answer the
following questions: “When should one tip? When not? How much?
And how should one give it? Such questions still cause surprisingly wide-
spread unease”.43 In Psychology Today this article makes a bold statement
in the title: ‘How to Battle Social Anxiety: Bring Back Etiquette! Minding
your manners can soothe your nerves’. When author Terri Cheney starts
“obsessing about an upcoming dinner”, she reads etiquette books to
soothe her anxiety:
40
Retrieved from https://www.thesatirist.com/satires/mister-etiquette-the-dark-side.html.
41
https://www.candacesmithetiquette.com/dining-faux-pas.html.
42
https://www.candacesmithetiquette.com/dining-rules.html.
43
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-tipping-point-5355002.html.
For that, I need to pull out my [etiquette] books, and double check who
gets introduced first to whom, and where I’m supposed to place my water
glass, and how to discreetly signal the waiter.44
Good manners diminish uncertainty “by establishing a polite and

expected way of doing things” and this reduces nerves:
Maybe this sounds too stilted and formal to you. You might complain that
it takes the fluidity out of social interaction. But in my opinion, that’s a
good thing. So what if we risk compromising spontaneity? As far as I’m
concerned, spontaneity is just another word for uncertainty. And anything
that reduces uncertainty is bound to have a calming effect on my nerves.45
True, the author of this post indicates she suffers from social anxiety dis-
order; however, Debrett’s website also sees etiquette as the antidote to
anxiety: “Good manners are attractive and empowering, removing anxiety
and minimising social difficulties or awkwardness.”46 Abrutyn and Carter
are right in claiming that contemporary society is no longer shaming peo-
ple who break etiquette rules (2014: 369); however, the fear of social blun-
ders is still part and parcel of etiquette discourse and removing social
anxiety is part of the etiquette mission. Obviously, social anxiety is rooted
in the awareness that the social circumstances scripted by etiquette hold
on to the gatekeeping function previously mentioned. Especially in the
business environment, there is an awareness that etiquette blunders can
have tangible consequences: impede a job offer, a promotion, spoil a deal.
This, it appears, is the value of twenty-first-century business etiquette.
Given the continued fear of blunders, what is the role of tact in present-
day etiquette? Peerless Etiquette proposes a podcast ‘Tact and Diplomacy’
which is on the topic of being direct: “Being direct is a great way to get
things done, but not a great way to build relationships”.47 Indeed, tact
44
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-bipolar-lens/201901/how-battle-social-
anxiety-bring-back-etiquette.
45
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-bipolar-lens/201901/how-battle-social-
anxiety-bring-back-etiquette.
46
https://debretts.com/etiquettes/.
47
https://www.peerlessetiquette.com/podcast/episode/236ad033/tact-and-diplomacy.
354 A. Paternoster
and diplomacy are regularly mentioned together as skills, especially as

regards a specific communication style (involving both conversation and
body language) around specific situations: the delivery of bad news or
criticism in a conflict situation. Etiquette blogger Candace Smith recom-
mends tact as the practical skill of implementing thoughtfulness in an
empathetic communication style, through listening and composure.48
Tact in the nineteenth century was an overarching intellectual skill, called
upon to handle a unique situation when etiquette rules were hazy.
Nowadays tact has become far more specific. Writing on ‘How to Develop
Relationships through Diplomacy and Tact’, Claire Valenty states that
tact “is essentially recognizing the delicacy of a situation and saying the
most appropriate thing”.49 Tact as diplomacy is now a conversational skill
needed for the delivery of bad news, which must be done with sensitivity
and empathy. In terms of Heyd’s 1995 analysis, it now mainly covers the
emotional component of tact. Within present-day etiquette discourse,
tact has lost the status of being an overarching, heuristic principle needed
to adapt to the unique situation when rules were vague.
Finally, how is ease faring in today’s etiquette discourse? Since contem-
porary etiquette is about avoiding unease, ease still must have currency,
and, indeed, it has. At ease with etiquette is the title of an etiquette guide
by Indian author Nina Kochhar (20134). An American book on wedding
etiquette has the reassuring subtitle: From invites to thank you notes—all
you need to handle even the stickiest situations with ease (Lefevre 20134).
The website of Polished Manners, a British etiquette academy, justifies its
courses with a promise of ease: “Etiquette makes people comfortable and
at ease”; it generates “confidence”.50 The British School of Excellence,
another training academy, promises that its “etiquette, emotional intelli-
gence and personal development courses will give you the skills and tools
to develop your confidence in any social or business environment and
make the changes you need to truly achieve your potential”.51 The refer-
ence to ease—acting with ease, putting others at ease—is often made in
48
https://www.candacesmithetiquette.com/tactful-communication.html.
49
http://etiquette-guide.com/how-to-develop-relationships-through-diplomacy-and-tact/.
50
https://www.polishedmanners.co.uk/why-do-we-need-etiquette/.
51
https://thebritishschoolofexcellence.com/.
prominent spaces of etiquette websites, that is, on the home page or in

the about section, mainly in the meaning of confidence. Etiquette acad-
emies claim to promote genuine confidence, whereas the nineteenth-
century usage of the term kept the reference to sprezzatura alive, that is,
the performance of ease, which hides the effort at applying the rules, only
to be achieved with assiduous practice. In a way, the difficulty of learning
and applying the minutiae of etiquette is now overlooked. When eti-
quette is used to put others at ease it refers to tact in the meaning of
empathy. Both the meaning of tact and ease have changed in respect of
their nineteenth-century counterparts. From a procedural meaning (how
to adapt vague rules to unique circumstances, how to perform natural-
ness) they now refer to feelings of empathy and confidence.
8.6 Conclusion
The admittedly patchy and incomplete findings of Chap. 8 go some way
to confirm that present-day etiquette discourse as found in multiple
online outlets can still be regarded an expression of Discernment, both as
scripted and schematic behaviour and as behaviour shaped by social hier-
archy. Differences with historical etiquette are limited and mainly regard
the range of contextual settings. The importance of society etiquette is
shrinking to the advantage of semi-institutional business etiquette. From
having a white upper-middle-class public, it has become more diverse
with non-profit organisations promoting inclusivity and disability eti-
quette. Morality claims are far more present than in historical etiquette,
with more references to civility, kindness, considerateness, respect, hon-
esty, and the presence of these values undermines the purely conventional
nature of etiquette. However, in my opinion, continuity outweighs
change. Etiquette is still about heavily scripted pathways of correct behav-
iour and access to detailed information is expensive. Considering that
historical etiquette books catered for the social elite, not much has
changed. Therefore, despite the free guidance available online, etiquette
has not shed its gatekeeping function. At the same time, it is still promot-
ing itself as an anxiolytic, to reduce the very anxiety it causes by continu-
ing to prescribe the rules for complicated ratification tests. The catch-22
356 A. Paternoster
of etiquette survives: etiquette is at the same time the cause and the rem-
edy for anxiety. The catch-22 is no other than the paradoxical nature of
etiquette observed by scholars of historical etiquette. While nineteenth-
century etiquette was hampering the social promotion of members of the
white middle class, now the effect has moved to the next group in search
of social promotion: etiquette enables people from a working-class and/
or from a BAME background to nail that job interview, grab that promo-
tion, but, at the same time, by its very complicatedness etiquette also
hampers upward mobility. Finally, the more institutionalised the context,
the more social norms are determined by precedence and hierarchy. These
concluding remarks are very much based on a provisional analysis, based
on a limited survey into a big volume of contemporary discourse. Mainly
based on British and American material, the analysis is also lobsided. It
also leaves out an important cross-cultural contribution from other long-
standing etiquette traditions, the important etiquette literature of the Far
East, for example, on Japanese Reigi or Chinese ‘Rites’ texts or Liji (Pan
and Kádár 2011: 130). The different points raised in this conclusion need
to be read as invites for future research, for which this book hopes to act
like a stimulus.
Skipton, 2022
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Index1
A Affectation, 26, 237, 254–258,

Acquaintance, 46, 125, 196, 198, 266, 267
199, 208, 211, 222, 223, 236, After-call, 208
241, 250, 254, 261–263, 265, Age, 22, 33, 37, 38, 61, 103, 106,
273, 305 110, 165, 213, 237n1, 249,
Address, 18, 27, 103, 121, 180, 194, 269, 272, 282, 294–299, 301,
196, 200, 205, 210, 212, 220, 303, 304, 306, 309, 310, 313,
223n2, 285, 286n1, 287, 315, 317, 319, 320, 324,
318–320, 323–326, 351, 352 326–328, 349
Admittance, 120–122 America, 10, 40, 41, 47, 151, 265,
Advice, 1, 2, 10, 12, 16, 17, 25, 284, 297, 298, 346
33, 38, 40, 42, 46, 56, 58, 60, American, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9–11, 41, 44,
62, 83, 107, 110, 180, 194, 46, 61, 62, 69, 113, 117, 124,
196, 199, 220, 223, 226, 238, 161, 180, 203, 212, 216,
243, 246, 252, 258, 259, 262, 219–221, 247, 250, 251, 257,
263, 269, 282, 297, 306, 263–265, 289, 297–299, 306,
322–324, 342–344, 352 312, 314, 315, 319, 323, 327,
See also Guidance 328, 339, 354, 356
1
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.
A. Paternoster, Historical Etiquette, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07578-0
390 Index
Amoral, 35, 36, 56, 108, 109, 114, 111–114, 116, 118, 123, 150,
136, 144, 184, 226, 274, 160, 168, 182, 198, 200, 201,
337, 346 203, 204, 206, 207, 212, 239,
Analytical, 14, 17, 20, 25, 114, 225, 241, 245, 247, 250, 251, 255,
235, 238, 281 262–265, 285, 287, 287n2,
Ancien régime, 18, 21, 24, 41, 48, 49, 288, 324, 338, 339,
54, 192, 193, 296, 338 341, 352–354
Anglo-American, 5, 264, 273,
314, 339
Antipoliteness, 53, 61 B
Anxiety, 7, 25, 26, 52, 235, 237, Ball, 25, 131, 135, 136, 177, 184,
242, 246, 265, 272, 274, 338, 194, 196–201, 205, 207,
351–353, 356 217–220, 226, 227, 245, 247,
Arbiter, 44–52, 205, 261 248, 254, 262, 273, 274, 290,
Aristocracy, 9, 38, 45, 47–49, 57, 307, 308, 337, 349
68, 144, 174, 181, 251, 268, Ball-room, 205, 206, 217–221, 254,
294, 296, 299 262, 307–308
See also Nobility Belgian, 3, 57, 104, 225, 350
Aristocrat, 22, 46–48, 52, 53, 60, Belgium, 11, 43, 48, 57
68, 156, 160, 174, 176, Benevolent sexism, 342
250, 267 Birth privilege, 160, 325
See also Nobleman See also Birth right
Aristocratic, 20, 26, 34, 36, 37, 39, Birth right, 61, 267, 273, 284, 328
45–47, 49, 50, 52, 56–58, 60, See also Birth privilege
66, 68, 70, 73, 144, 174, 176, Black, 64, 245, 342
238, 251, 253, 267, 282, 284, Blank, 319–325
295, 296, 298, 299, 307, Blogger, 3, 345, 354
325, 327 Blunder, 17, 25, 26, 45, 102, 149,
See also Noble 220, 235–274, 352, 353
Aristotle, 17, 36, 98 Blundering, 182, 227, 240, 244,
Asymmetrical, 19, 282, 290, 246, 253, 254, 261, 265,
326, 328 271–273, 303, 339, 352
At home day, 199, 208, 303 Bourgeois, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52,
Aulnoy, Baronne d’, 157, 158, 254–256, 260, 273
165, 166 Bourgeoisie, 34, 43, 47–49, 57, 68,
Author, 2–5, 14, 17, 19, 23, 36, 42, 70, 71, 83, 144, 259
43, 46, 51, 54, 56–58, 60, 61, See also Middle class/middle-class
63–68, 70, 71, 74n6, 83, Bow, 119, 160, 182, 203, 221, 224,
97–99, 103–106, 109, 261–263, 316, 317, 321
Index 391
Bowing, 261, 316 Celnart, Mme, 54, 56–58, 62, 64,

Breach, 1, 45, 307 69, 74, 109, 260, 296, 301,
See also Error; Mistake 306, 321
Britain, 3, 7, 10, 22, 27, 34, 36, 39, Ceremonial, 80, 117, 131, 165, 168,
41, 47, 48, 52, 58, 59, 62, 69, 171, 180, 181, 320
71, 83, 174, 208, 220, 261, See also Protocol
262, 284, 291, 298, 323, 327 Ceremony, 26, 116, 131, 166, 167,
British, 9, 12, 17, 24, 39, 41, 46, 47, 171, 172, 177–179, 198, 201,
52, 58, 60, 65, 69–72, 108, 208, 221, 223, 226, 236, 237,
109, 144, 150, 161, 195, 200, 244, 246, 248, 267, 291,
211, 212, 216, 219, 221, 223, 293, 310
239, 240, 251, 254, 261, 263, Chair precedence, 179
264, 282, 293, 294, 296–299, Change, 1, 7, 8, 10, 19, 20, 70, 102,
306–309, 312, 315, 317, 319, 115, 117, 146, 147, 162, 174,
323, 324, 326, 327, 352, 181, 196, 225, 236, 251, 252,
354, 356 308, 310, 316, 338, 339, 343,
British Library, 21, 72, 80 350, 354, 355
Bryson, Anna, 38, 39 Charity, 105, 108, 110, 112, 131, 132
Burke, E., 151, 162, 172, 293, 294 See also Fraternal love;
Burke, J., 2 Neighbourly love; Politeness
Burke, P., 35 from the heart
Business attire, 340 Chesterfield, The Earl of, 36, 37, 58,
Business etiquette, 4–5, 7, 12, 146, 103, 144, 172
338, 340–344, 349, 353, 355 Chivalry, 342, 350, 351
Business lunch, 340, 349 Choreographic, 178, 184, 202–204
Choreography, 25, 183, 200–207
Christening, 25, 198, 237, 310
C Churchgoing, 38, 43
Capitalist, 47, 52 Cicero, 17, 36, 267
Card, 171, 181, 208–211, 215, 216, Circumstance, 25, 26, 42, 44, 83,
251, 320, 322 122, 125, 131–133, 135, 136,
Carelessness, 220, 238 177, 178, 183, 184, 194–201,
Carriage, 26, 27, 198, 216, 244, 207, 220, 225–227, 235, 236,
282, 283, 290, 309–312, 269–271, 273, 274, 284, 316,
318, 325 317, 337, 338, 348, 349,
Castiglione, Baldassare, 35, 51, 167, 353, 355
182, 267 Civility, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 74, 117,
Catholic, 39, 42, 43, 56, 104, 131, 151, 153, 338, 345, 347,
107, 108 348, 355
392 Index
Class, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 22, 26, 33, 34, Complicatedness, 182, 226, 227,
37, 38, 42–52, 59, 103, 118, 235, 237, 265, 269, 272, 273,
120–122, 144, 237, 243, 249, 281, 324, 356
267, 284, 289, 295, 296, 307, Compulsory, 24, 25, 42, 102, 103,
327, 350 114, 116, 118, 120, 125, 127,
Classist, 342 129, 130, 132, 134–136,
See also Elitist; Exclusionary; 183–184, 191, 199, 208,
Exclusivist 225–227, 235, 264, 271, 272,
Close reading, 21–23, 97, 99, 123, 274, 281, 323, 337–340, 351
135, 281 See also Mandatory; Normative
Closing formula, 220, 323–325 Conduct book, 9, 10, 14–16, 18, 19,
Code, 6, 11, 34, 41, 43, 46, 47, 52, 22, 23, 33–44, 50, 52–54, 56,
80, 117, 120, 172, 173, 180, 64, 65, 67, 68, 72, 74, 83, 84,
201, 307 97–99, 102, 104–108, 111,
See also Law 163, 175, 180, 201, 246, 258
Coercive, 271, 339 See also Galateo
See also Stringent Confidence, 254, 341, 348, 354, 355
Collocate, 98, 123–127, 129, Conservative, 70, 327
132–134, 194 See also Traditional
Collocation, 21, 23, 123–135 Consistency, 11, 17, 18, 22, 34,
Colombi, Marchesa di, 67–69, 111, 69, 83, 114
112, 211, 295 Consistent, 10, 11, 16, 46, 126, 225,
Colonial, 19, 40, 47, 48 287, 316, 338
Coming-out, 26, 237, 244, Conspicuous leisure, 51
246, 248 Conspicuous spending, 51, 115
Commercial, 3, 7, 17, 22, 34, 44, Consultancy, 2, 5, 340, 341
47, 56, 58, 59, 66, 161, 180, Convention, 17, 19, 35, 42, 44, 83,
303, 343, 344, 352 102, 103, 105, 112–116, 132,
Comparative, 10, 22, 34, 48, 136, 184, 192, 196, 226, 235,
69, 72, 146 274, 284, 328, 337, 340, 347
See also Cross-cultural; See also Norm
Intercultural Conventional, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18,
Compliance, 103, 104, 112, 114, 19, 38, 105, 112, 192, 289,
118, 122, 136, 163, 184, 226, 291, 355
271, 274, 303, 337, 340 Conventionalisation, 13, 16, 19, 220
Complicated, 25, 45, 201, 203, 204, Conversation, 18, 25, 27, 36, 45, 167,
211, 219, 226, 227, 235, 241, 196, 198, 200, 204, 206, 212,
265, 267, 272, 274, 301, 314, 215, 241, 258, 259, 268, 270,
338, 349, 351, 356 273, 284, 299, 324, 338, 354
Index 393
Corporate, 4–7, 192, 328, 349, 351 Courtesy, 15, 22, 33–38, 97, 111, 112
Corpus, 11, 19–25, 34, 37, 42, 44, Courtesy book, 22, 33–44, 83, 270,
46, 54, 56, 59, 60, 63, 65, 70, 271, 319
72–83, 98, 102n1, 103, 111, Courtier, 35, 36, 38, 51, 52, 163,
114, 116, 119, 123–136, 143, 170, 176, 177, 179, 182,
145, 147, 148, 150, 153, 159, 267, 268
160, 181, 194, 195, 201, 202, Cross-cultural, 11, 18, 19, 102, 127,
208, 226, 238, 239, 239n2, 161, 216, 220, 263, 264, 314,
247, 249, 263, 264, 266, 268, 327, 338, 343, 356
281, 296 See also Comparative;
Corpus dei galatei italiani Intercultural
ottocenteschi (CGIO), 72 Culpeper, Johan, 13, 15–20, 39, 98,
Corpus diacronico dell’italiano 106, 145, 193
scritto (DiaCORIS), 24, 143, Curtin, Michael J., 9, 10, 34, 36, 45,
160, 161, 239n2 47, 58–61, 71, 107, 171, 208,
Corpus of Historical American 268, 348
English (COHA), 20, 24, 143, Custom, 16, 38, 40, 80, 112, 113,
147, 148 115, 117, 118, 124–126, 132,
Corpus of Late Modern English 165, 168, 170, 171, 173, 204,
Texts (CLMET), 24, 37, 143, 208, 247, 254, 265, 298, 305,
150, 172 321, 322
Correct, 12, 26, 110, 117, 129, 176, See also Habit; Usage
183, 193, 207, 210, 216, 217, Customary, 112, 114, 115, 118, 122,
238, 242, 257, 272, 282, 292, 126, 131, 134–136, 172, 173,
303, 319, 323, 340, 341, 346, 193, 241, 253, 340
348, 350, 355 Cut, 261–264, 273, 314
Correctness, 12, 116, 303, 348 Cutting, 261, 263, 264
Correspondence, 18, 19, 25, 183,
271, 318
See also Epistolary; Letter D
writing Dance-master, 203, 205, 223
Course, 1, 3, 4, 26, 40, 118, 174, Dancing, 58, 196, 202, 204,
238, 243, 268, 338, 340, 341, 204n1, 224
343, 347, 354 Debrett, John, 2–4, 293, 294, 346,
Court, 6, 22, 24, 35, 38, 50–53, 58, 348, 353
116, 133, 144, 145, 153, 154, Debutant, 237, 244–249
156–158, 161–184, 191, 203, Debutante, 26, 237, 244–249, 272
227, 244, 274, 327, 337, 338, Deference, 39, 53, 61, 193, 235,
348, 349 283, 285–288, 318–327
394 Index
Deferential, 18–20, 53, 193, 286, 315 Diplomacy, 48, 183, 354
Definition, 15, 22, 23, 41, 62, 84, Diplomatic protocol, 183, 193, 338
97, 99, 105, 114–124, 135, Disability etiquette, 344–346, 355
136, 143–145, 153, 164, 165, Discernment, 12, 20, 21, 24–26,
168, 173, 184, 194, 226, 227, 191–194, 225–227, 235, 238,
238, 239, 250, 273, 283, 329, 270, 271, 273, 281, 283, 284,
337, 338, 346–348, 351 303, 326, 328, 329, 338, 339,
Della Casa, Giovanni, 18, 39, 42 351, 355
Delpher.nl, 21, 72, 154, 170 Discourse, 14, 15, 37, 42, 58, 117,
Destructive ritual, 26, 199, 145, 191, 206, 236, 244,
237, 261–265 253, 259, 268, 271, 272, 326,
Detail, 54, 58, 103, 114, 119, 131, 329, 339, 340, 342,
136, 166, 177, 179, 181, 183, 348, 353–356
198, 199, 202, 204, 345 Discursive turn, 13
Detailed, 40, 42, 44–46, 56, 59, 63, Diversity, 343, 344
65, 68, 70, 83, 162, 176, 179, Domestic, 41, 63, 151, 200
181, 184, 199, 201, 227, 274, Domesticity, 40, 41, 50, 51
318, 319, 323–325, 338, 339, Dossena, Marina, 18, 19, 257,
345, 349, 355 258, 318
Dictionary, 24, 38, 70, 136, 144, Drawing-room, 22, 26, 45, 51, 58,
154, 158, 159, 164–174, 183, 59, 68, 175, 196, 203,
224, 242 206–211, 213, 215–216,
Digital, 2, 21, 23, 34, 65, 72–83, 218–219, 226, 242, 246, 269,
142, 143, 152, 344 282, 292, 294, 301, 303–307,
Digitale Bibliotheek voor de 313, 318
Nederlandse Letteren (DBNL), Dress, 5, 26, 106, 107, 114, 124,
24, 143, 151–153 125, 170, 180, 196, 198, 201,
Dining, 2, 58, 177, 183, 193, 196, 212, 218, 241, 252, 253n5,
201, 202, 211, 226, 240, 241, 254, 255, 257, 273, 338, 340
292–294, 306, 307, 313, 327, Driving, 8, 311, 312, 318
328, 338, 341, 349 Dutch, 5, 6, 9, 11, 24, 44, 46, 49,
Dining-room, 206, 211–216, 226, 64, 66, 68–70, 72, 81, 83,
282, 292, 294–303, 318 109, 111, 117, 118, 123, 124,
Dinner, 5, 7, 25, 51, 61, 132, 133, 127–130, 133, 143, 144, 147,
135, 136, 177, 179, 184, 194, 151–154, 161, 162, 165,
197–201, 206, 207, 211–213, 169–175, 183, 202, 203, 208,
216, 217, 226, 227, 245–247, 212, 216, 223, 239, 249, 252,
252, 274, 282, 285, 288, 289, 260, 263, 264, 268, 282, 294,
291–295, 297–299, 326, 337, 296, 298, 317, 320, 321, 324,
349, 352 326, 327, 351
Index 395
E Equal, 212, 240, 249, 285, 305,

Ease, 26, 45, 238, 246, 265–274, 320, 326–328
284, 338, 351, 354, 355 Erasmian, 42, 43, 338
See also Naturalness; Sprezzatura Erasmus, Desiderius, 38, 39, 41,
Edition, 2, 9, 11, 40, 42, 52, 54, 56, 43, 44, 54
57, 59–61, 63, 65–70, 74, Error, 25, 167, 201, 202, 220, 235,
104, 158, 167, 168, 171, 180, 238, 239, 241, 246, 255, 257,
181, 250, 251, 339, 345 258, 260
Editorial, 22, 33, 34, 39, 40, 44, See also Breach; Mistake
54, 69, 84 Established bourgeoisie, 70, 71
Educational, 17, 37, 43, 58, 105, Etic, 18, 271
114, 121–122, 135, 136, Etichetta, 21, 118, 124, 133, 134,
180, 340 145–147, 159–161, 167–169,
Effortlessness, 266, 267, 273 174, 191
Elias, Nobert, 8, 9, 39, 176 Etiqueta, 24, 144, 159, 165, 167,
Elite, 11, 36, 45, 47–50, 64, 102, 169, 174
114, 115, 120, 129, 134, 136, Etiquette, 1, 33, 97, 143, 191, 235,
184, 226, 243, 251, 272–274, 281, 337
299, 326, 337, 340 Etiquette academy, 2, 4, 7, 338, 341,
See also Ruling class; Upper class/ 354, 355
upper-class Etiquette blogger, 3, 345, 354
Elitist, 120–122, 181, 342 Etiquette book, 2, 33, 97, 143, 191,
See also Classist; Exclusionary; 236, 289, 347
Exclusivist See also Etiquette guide;
Embarrassment, 238–243, 268, 274, Etiquette manual
338, 351 Etiquette coach, 2, 3
Emic, 18, 99, 114, 270, 271, 337 Etiquette expert, 3, 4
Emotion, 7, 236, 272, 273 Etiquette guides, 2, 3, 344, 354
See also Feeling See also Etiquette books;
Emotional, 235, 239, 268, 270, 354 Etiquette manual
Empathy, 106, 245, 246, 265, 268, Etiquette manual, 12, 43, 53, 204,
270, 346, 354, 355 207, 243, 338, 345, 351
Empire, 48, 53, 179 See also Etiquette book;
Enlightenment, 160 Etiquette guides
Entrance, 26, 206, 237, 244–247, Etiquette tuition, 340
272, 300, 306, 307 Etymology, 22, 24, 118, 144, 158, 159,
Entrepreneur, 48, 49, 341, 342 164, 165, 173, 174, 183, 281
Epistolary, 18, 37, 319, 324 European, 35, 38, 39, 41, 48, 70,
See also Correspondence; 198, 199, 217, 220, 222, 264,
Letter writing 271, 273, 298, 313–315, 322
396 Index
Evans, Richard, 11, 47–50, 71 179, 181, 184, 193, 196, 198,
Exclusionary, 38, 83, 119, 121 200, 202, 206, 208, 209, 212,
See also Classist; Elitist; Exclusivist 213, 220, 221, 223, 224, 226,
Exclusivist, 44, 251, 266 227, 235, 237, 237n1, 243,
See also Classist; Elitist; 247, 264, 273, 283, 293, 312,
Exclusionary 316, 323–325, 340, 348
Formal, 6, 12, 14, 36, 59, 132, 173,
183, 192, 196, 201, 206, 211,
F 223, 258, 282, 287, 293, 294,
Face, 19, 109, 192, 204, 212, 235, 324, 326, 338, 347, 353
238, 242, 252, 283, 299, 304, Formalisation, 8
308, 314 Formula, 108, 220, 221, 224, 225,
Familiar, 18, 108, 176, 320, 321 287, 323, 327
See also Informal See also Line
Familiarity, 261, 297, 351 France, 6, 10, 11, 22, 24, 27, 34, 36,
Fashion, 10, 40, 102, 104, 126, 131, 39, 41, 48, 49, 52–59, 61, 62,
155, 196, 251, 252, 300, 316 69–71, 73, 84, 99, 145, 154,
Feeling, 8, 42, 101, 102, 109–112, 155, 158n1, 162, 166, 174, 180,
119, 127, 160, 238, 240–243, 284, 293, 294, 319, 327
245, 270, 272, 274, 338, 346, Franchise, 59
351, 355 See also Suffrage
See also Emotion Frantext, 24, 143, 155, 156, 158,
Female, 43, 51, 56, 61, 63, 66, 67, 179, 239n2
70, 71, 83, 196, 223, 237n1, Fraternal love, 23, 98, 105, 109,
264, 269, 282, 295, 298, 299, 111, 112, 114, 131, 136, 184,
309, 310, 341, 342, 351 226, 270, 274, 337, 346
Feminisation, 51, 56, 342 See also Charity; Neighbourly
Feudal, 117, 176, 328 love; Politeness from the heart
First-order, 14–16, 21, 23, 24, 37, French, 3, 5, 6, 8–11, 24, 35, 40, 43,
99, 114, 142, 144, 191, 271, 45–51, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60–62,
273, 328, 329, 337, 345 64–66, 69, 70, 72–76, 99, 102,
Fisher, Mary Rosalie, 9, 10, 34, 36, 104, 107–109, 111, 115, 117,
38, 39, 41, 42, 44–47, 53, 54, 122, 123, 130–133, 143–145,
56, 59, 61, 74, 131, 208, 284 147, 153–159, 161–167,
Fitzmaurice, Susan, 18–20, 36, 37, 169–177, 180, 183, 193, 199,
48, 50, 193 201, 202, 208, 210, 219, 222,
Form, 1, 12, 13, 19, 24–26, 43, 44, 223n2, 224, 225, 239, 239n2,
58, 70–72, 99, 104–106, 240, 242, 247, 249, 249n3, 250,
108–110, 112–114, 119, 122, 253n5, 255, 256n6, 258–260,
124–126, 128, 136, 165, 171, 264, 268, 268n9, 282, 285, 286,
Index 397
286n1, 289, 294–298, 300, 302, Google Ngram Viewer, 8, 37, 146,
303, 306–308, 313, 317–322, 154, 156, 159
324, 326, 327 See also Google Books
Friend, 125, 126, 208, 221, 254, Ngram Viewer
287, 304, 305, 309, 326, 327 Grammar, 38, 103, 116, 117, 257
Funeral, 2, 6, 25, 135, 136, 193, Greeting, 5, 25, 26, 196, 199, 209,
198, 237, 338 210, 212, 261–264, 273, 282,
315–316, 318, 319, 325, 341
See also Salutation
G Guest, 2, 40, 206, 209–213, 215,
Galateo, 18, 39, 42 216, 218, 219, 269, 282,
See also Conduct book 285–289, 291–300, 303–306,
Galateo, Il, 3, 5 309, 310, 317, 326, 327,
Gallica.fr, 21, 72, 74, 287n2, 302 349, 350
Gatekeeper, 34, 51 Guest of honour, 213, 282, 295,
Gatekeeping, 114, 118–122, 135, 299, 303, 349
136, 184, 198, 199, 226, Guidance, 1, 2, 121, 162, 303,
236, 243, 250, 256, 272–274, 323, 339, 340, 344, 345,
318, 326, 337, 340, 344, 349, 355
353, 355 See also Advice
Gender, 13, 22, 33, 41, 44, 60, 71,
125, 247, 282, 304, 306, 324,
326, 328, 342, 343, 350, 351 H
Gentleman, 104, 127, 205, 211, Habit, 101, 102, 106, 115, 119,
224, 250, 251, 259, 261–263, 124, 126, 134, 260, 266, 267,
267, 285, 288, 289, 296–299, 298, 300, 317
306, 312 See also Custom; Usage
Gilded Age, 3 Handshake, 1, 282, 314, 316–318,
Global etiquette, 328 325, 347
See also International etiquette Haugh, Michael, 14–18, 98,
Goffman, Erving, 11, 206, 262 207, 284
Golden rule, 17, 23, 98, 105, 106, Hierarchical, 20, 135, 136, 193,
111, 111n2, 113, 201, 202 283, 319, 328, 349, 351
See also Reciprocity Hierarchy, 7, 21, 26, 45, 119, 125,
Google Books, 21, 72, 74, 80, 135, 136, 173, 176, 177, 184,
82, 83, 157 194, 227, 274, 282, 283, 328,
Google Books Ngram Viewer, 336, 342, 348, 349, 351,
146–151, 155, 159 355, 356
See also Google Ngram Viewer See also Rank
398 Index
Honorific, 12, 27, 192, 193, 282, 324 Industrial revolution, 35, 43,
See also Title 48, 71, 84
Honourable, 282, 286, 295, 305, Inferior, 27, 212, 221, 235, 251,
306, 314, 325, 326 261, 264, 273, 282–285, 290,
Host, 46, 196, 201, 206, 212, 213, 306, 312, 315–317, 320
216, 218, 219, 282, 287, See also Subordinate
292–295, 297–301, 303, Influencer, 4
326–328, 346 Informal, 209, 223, 286–288, 324,
Hostess, 20, 51, 196, 202, 208–210, 349, 351
212, 213, 215, 216, 219, 223, See also Familiar
242, 243, 246–248, 269, 292, Informalisation, 6, 7, 73
295, 297–299, 301, 303–306, Innate, 101, 102, 249, 267, 273
310, 317, 326 Institutional, 5, 6, 27, 184, 192,
Hypercorrection, 18, 26, 257, 258, 227, 274, 284, 294, 328, 336,
260, 273 344, 349–351
Intercultural, 192, 199, 338
See also Comparative;
I Cross-cultural
Impolite, 27, 283, 284, 287, 326 International etiquette, 2, 4, 341
See also Rude See also Global etiquette
Impoliteness, 14, 18, 238, 239, Internet Archive, 21, 72, 82
283, 326 Introduction, 42, 112, 113, 123,
Impositive, 19, 283 126, 129, 176, 191–196, 198,
Inclusion, 44, 120, 153, 210, 272, 199, 219–224, 246, 261–263,
343, 344 270, 273, 281–284, 298, 314,
Inclusion etiquette, 343, 344 316, 318, 325, 342, 351
See also Inclusivity etiquette See also Presentation
Inclusivist, 22, 83, 121 Intruder, 240, 250, 256, 272
See also Universalist Invitation, 2, 34, 46, 51, 125,
Inclusivity etiquette, 343 181, 194, 196, 197, 199, 208,
See also Inclusion etiquette 212, 213, 217–220,
Individual, 12, 20, 26, 34, 105, 108, 223–225, 322
113, 119, 165, 204, 237, 240, Italian, 3, 5, 9, 11, 18–20, 24, 42,
254, 261, 270, 272, 273, 283, 43, 49, 53, 57, 67, 68, 71, 72,
303, 327 82, 83, 106, 110, 111, 113,
Individualism, 19 115, 118, 122–124, 133–134,
Individualistic, 19, 327, 328 143, 144, 147, 159–162,
Industrialisation, 20, 34, 46–48, 71 167–169, 171–174, 181, 193,
Index 399
201, 202, 208, 217, 222, 225, 246, 247, 257, 259, 261–263,
239, 239n2, 249, 253n5, 259, 265, 266, 269, 274, 292,
259n8, 264, 268, 270, 271, 295–299, 305, 306, 309, 312,
282, 289, 295, 296, 298, 300, 317, 318
301, 303, 305, 320, 324, Landed bourgeoisie, 47
326, 327 La Salle, Saint Jean Baptiste
Italy, 3, 9, 18, 21, 22, 34, 42, 43, de, 39, 54
48, 52, 67–72, 72n4, 82, Late modern, 9, 18, 257
83, 154, 167, 265, 295, 327 Law, 7, 111–113, 116–120,
125, 126, 173, 180, 284,
291–294, 303, 307, 323,
J 326, 346
Jucker, Andreas, 13, 14, 16–20, See also Code
36–38, 98, 99, 132, 135, 145, Layout, 27, 318, 319
192–194, 227, 237, 238, 271, Letter, 18, 36, 58, 103, 125, 148,
281–283, 328 150, 155, 160, 170, 182, 183,
Judgement, 26, 226, 238, 268, 270, 196, 199, 200, 270, 282,
271, 273 318–327, 352
Letter writing, 27, 58, 170, 183,
196, 199, 200, 220, 270,
K 284, 318–325
Kádár, Dániel, 12, 14–18, 192, 193, See also Correspondence;
196, 207, 225, 235–237, 261, Epistolary
270, 271, 282, 284, 328, Libro del Cortegiano, Il, 35,
338, 356 38, 267
Kasson, John F., 9–11, 40, 44, 45, Lifestyle, 11, 20, 49, 50, 170,
47, 61–64, 117 340, 342
Kindness, 107, 127, 345, 347, 355 Liminal, 196, 198, 236, 237, 244,
272, 273, 316
Liminality, 236
L Line, 25, 48, 64, 107, 116, 120,
Label, 14, 22, 23, 98, 147, 153, 159, 172, 191–227, 235,
153–156, 159–162, 164–166, 242, 268, 269, 298, 316, 321,
170, 176 322, 326, 340
Labourer, 289, 290, 292, 326 See also formula
Lady, 9, 35, 46, 60, 126, 127, 151, Longseller, 39, 54, 57, 69
170, 202, 203, 205, 208–211, Louis XIV, 108, 162, 165, 176, 177
215–217, 219–224, 243, 244, Louis XV, 174
400 Index
M Military protocol, 133

Mandatory, 27, 116, 120, 199, Mills, Sara, 12, 192, 193, 225,
225, 284 235, 282, 328, 338,
See also Compulsory; Normative 351, 352
Manner, 1, 3, 6–9, 19, 22, 23, 33–40, Minutiae, 25, 194, 201, 202, 207,
42–45, 53, 54, 57, 58, 65, 68, 211, 226, 240, 355
83, 97, 105, 107–109, 116, 120, See also Trifle
124–126, 151, 171, 172, 176, Mistake, 227, 235, 236, 238, 239,
177, 202, 203, 211, 212, 215, 241, 246, 250, 257
237, 243, 250, 251, 254, 257, See also Breach; Error
266, 267, 287, 306, 319, 338, Moral, 12, 22, 33, 35, 36,
340, 341, 346–348, 352, 353 39–42, 59, 97–99, 105,
Manual, 2, 12, 16, 19, 38, 39, 107, 108, 110–114, 126, 136,
42–44, 53, 54, 56–59, 62, 63, 144, 184, 226, 274,
65, 107, 114–116, 202, 204, 337, 346–348
205, 207, 237, 243, 288, 300, Moralising, 14, 23, 33, 37, 39,
318, 319, 338, 339, 345, 351 41–43, 56, 58, 99, 103,
Marital status, 61, 282, 301 104, 108
Marriage, 25, 41, 51, 196–199, 205, Morality, 13, 17, 36, 37, 40, 97–99,
236, 301 104, 107, 108, 110, 112–114,
Mention, 2, 4, 11, 60, 65, 99, 107, 136, 184, 226, 274,
111, 135, 145, 153, 154, 346–348, 355
161–164, 166, 170, 173, 200, Morfologia dell’italiano in
212, 221, 223, 226, 239, 270, diacronia (MIDIA), 24, 143,
287, 287n2, 298, 299, 308, 159, 173
316, 327, 346 Morgan, Marjorie, 9, 11, 34, 36, 38,
Metacognitive, 15, 207, 226, 40, 45, 47, 51, 52, 58–61, 66,
271, 338 71, 175, 268, 272, 292
Metadiscourse, 14, 15, 17, 99, 143 Mortification, 241, 242, 250, 251
Metapragmatic, 13–15, 23, 98, 99, Mountain dweller, 105–108
135, 264, 271 Mourning, 25, 129, 177, 198
Methodological, 17, 98
Methodology, 23, 123, 135
Middle class/middle-class, 8, 9, 12, N
20, 22, 34, 35, 37–41, 43–50, Napoleon Bonaparte, 24, 43, 48, 50,
52, 54, 57, 59, 60, 62–64, 71, 53, 117, 145, 161, 177, 179,
107, 162, 181, 251, 268, 284, 180–183, 203, 293, 294
340, 341, 355, 356 National, 9–11, 22, 34, 35, 42,
See also Bourgeois; Bourgeoisie 43, 46, 66
Index 401
Nation-building, 59 295, 296, 298, 300, 301, 305,

Naturalness, 26, 238, 266, 267, 355 306, 313, 320, 322, 323, 327,
See also Ease; Sprezzatura 354, 356
Neighbourly love, 102, 105 Novel, 37, 38, 58, 63, 66, 98, 155,
The Netherlands, 3, 6, 10, 21, 22, 160, 204n1, 259n8
34, 43, 48, 52, 64–67, 69–71,
84, 154, 327
Network, 8, 18, 34, 68, 194, 236, O
237, 251, 272 Observer, 15, 16
Networking, 25, 51, 125, 126, 135, Opera, 26, 67n3, 282, 283, 308, 325
196, 197, 226, 236, 341 Ostentation, 26, 237, 253, 256, 257
Nevala, Mina, 318, 319 Ostentatious, 26, 252, 253, 273
Newton, Sarah, 41 Ostracisation, 26, 237
Nobility, 48, 49, 163, 167, 175, 177, Outsider, 18, 45, 120, 273
223n2, 259n7, 267, 286, 297 Oxford English Dictionary, 39,
See also Aristocracy 147, 172–173
Noble, 49, 288, 291, 293, 296
See also Aristocratic
Nobleman, 160 P
See also Aristocrat Paper size, 319, 320, 324, 325
Non-imposition, 19, 20 Park, 255, 282, 313, 318
Non-institutional, 27, 175, Participant, 13–16, 37, 178, 207,
193, 284 237, 240, 244
Non-profit, 343, 344, 355 Parvenu, 26, 237, 249–256, 258,
Non-ratification, 25, 236, 272 267, 272, 273
Norm, 6–8, 11, 12, 14, 16, 25, 27, See also Social climber; Upstart
98, 129, 191, 192, 238, 326, Pattern, 15, 46, 131, 134, 145, 161,
328, 339, 340, 356 171, 216, 225, 340
See also Convention Pavement, 26, 282, 283, 310, 313,
Normative, 12, 114, 116–118, 122, 314, 325
131, 136, 184, 193, 339, 340 Penname, 46, 66–68, 70
See also Compulsory; Mandatory See also Pseudonym
Notables, 11, 48, 49, 295, 296, 299, Performance, 25, 26, 194, 236, 238,
327, 341 267, 273, 355
Note, 19, 37, 39, 42, 54, 60, 62, 69, Performer, 25, 52, 236, 268, 272
102, 117, 118, 123, 147, 165, Petty bourgeoisie, 43, 70, 83, 259
166, 171, 195, 199, 206, 208, Place of honour, 26, 213, 282, 295,
209, 212, 241, 251, 255, 256, 297, 301, 304, 306,
267, 281, 286, 287, 289, 293, 308–314, 319
402 Index
Pocket, 60, 70 Presidential protocol, 328, 338, 349

Politeness, 6, 36, 97, 143, 192, 235, Prestige, 44, 50, 115, 176, 296, 340
283, 337 Prestigious, 237, 272, 284, 300
Politeness from the heart, 23, 101, Procession, 179, 184, 213–216, 226,
105, 109, 117 282, 292, 294–296, 299, 325,
See also Charity; Fraternal love; 327, 350
Neighbourly love Project Gutenberg, 21, 72, 82, 83
Post, Emily, 2, 3, 5, 176, 248, 252, Promenade, 198, 313–314
253, 257, 258, 339, 341, See also Walk
343, 345–347 Proportion, 240, 252, 253, 286,
Potestas, 283, 284, 326 306, 322
Power, 19, 47, 48, 51, 66, 118, 144, Proportionate, 320, 321
174, 176, 193, 199, 240, 263, Propriety, 38, 53, 80, 128, 130–131,
283, 291, 318, 326, 328, 350 212, 263
Precedence, 2, 26, 27, 61, 127, 135, Proscription, 344
165, 169, 176, 179, 183, 185, Protestant, 39, 41, 43
194, 213, 216, 221, 222, 226, Protocol, 5–7, 24, 53, 118, 133,
281–329, 342, 346, 144, 145, 153, 154, 157, 158,
348–351, 356 162, 164–166, 168–177,
Precedence table, 292, 294 181–184, 192, 193, 227,
See also Table of precedence 267, 274, 328, 337,
Precedency, 27, 177, 282, 284, 292, 338, 348–351
293, 297, 299, 310, 312, See also Ceremonial
322–324, 350 Proto-scientific, 16, 17, 99, 338
Pre-negotiated, 192, 193, 220 Pseudonym, 54, 56, 57, 60, 63, 66,
See also Scripted 67, 148, 177, 287n2
Prescription, 10, 56, 153 See also Penname
See also Rule Public office, 49, 282, 293, 297,
Prescriptive, 12, 15, 16, 18, 144, 191 325, 327
Present, 68, 111, 114, 118, 126, Publisher, 2, 42, 56, 57, 59,
129, 135, 154, 171, 176, 178, 62–66, 69, 70
196, 198, 199, 204, 208, 212, Purity, 40, 41
213, 216, 221, 225, 226, 244,
251, 252, 270, 289, 292, 297,
298, 305, 348, 349, 351, 355 Q
Presentation, 180, 181, 184, 195, Qualitative, 21, 23, 37, 73, 97, 98,
203, 207, 222, 227, 244, 247, 124, 239
274, 338, 347, 349 Quantitative, 21, 23, 24, 98, 124,
See also Introduction 135, 144, 345
Index 403
R Ridealgh, Kim, 193, 194, 227,

Rank, 26, 27, 44, 47, 126, 127, 135, 271, 281–284, 287, 290,
170, 171, 175, 177, 179, 184, 326, 328
208, 221, 227, 250, 251, 260, Ridicule, 25, 237, 241, 242, 253,
261, 273, 274, 282–287, 255, 256, 259, 260
289–293, 295–301, 303, Ridiculous, 177, 241, 242, 253,
306–309, 311, 312, 317–329, 260, 288
339, 342, 349–351 Riding, 58, 163, 200, 311–313,
See also Hierarchy 318, 325
Ratification, 236, 243, 257, 272, Rite of passage, 245
273, 340, 356 Ritual, 13, 17, 25, 26, 113, 192,
Ratified, 25, 236, 237, 272, 273 196, 198, 199, 219, 235–237,
Reader, 11, 17, 25, 36, 38, 39, 41, 45, 244, 247, 261–265, 267,
51, 56, 59, 60, 64, 68, 71, 104, 272–274, 314, 327, 328,
106, 110, 112–114, 125, 180, 337, 340
194, 201, 203, 207, 211, 212, Ritualistic, 12, 192
235, 237, 238, 241, 243, 244, Rousseauist, 41, 108
247, 264–267, 271, 285, 291, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 17, 38
308, 309, 317, 319, 324, 343 Rouvillois, Frédéric, 6, 8, 9, 53,
Readership, 35, 43, 61, 64, 54, 61, 177
68, 83, 107 Royal protocol, 328
Receiving day, 208, 247 Rude, 14, 109, 112, 263, 273,
See also At-home day 288–290, 326
Reception-room, 26, 256, 325 See also Impolite
Reciprocity, 23, 98, 105, 106 Rule, 10, 12, 14, 16–18, 22, 23,
See also Golden Rule 25, 26, 34–36, 44, 45, 47, 49,
Recurring, 2, 18, 25, 117, 131, 135, 53, 58, 59, 61, 70, 71,
136, 178, 184, 192, 194, 196, 103–106, 108, 109, 111, 113,
198–200, 225–227, 251, 258, 116, 117, 120, 122, 124–129,
261, 274, 337, 348 131, 144, 158, 165, 166, 170,
Reformalisation, 6, 7 175–178, 178n2, 180,
Religion, 36, 40, 43, 106 182–184, 194, 196, 201–204,
Religious, 35–37, 39, 43, 56, 98, 207–211, 213, 215–217, 219,
101, 105, 168, 177, 193, 198, 225, 226, 235–238, 240–243,
201, 206, 236 250, 251, 254, 256, 262, 263,
Republican, 47, 53, 180, 288, 327 265–271, 273, 282–284, 286,
Return visit, 46, 129, 196 296–299, 301–303, 305,
Revolution, 6–8, 34, 35, 43, 48, 50, 308–310, 313, 314, 316–319,
53, 71, 84, 156, 179, 273 322, 324, 327–329, 339, 340,
Revolutionary, 41, 43, 53, 54, 84, 163 342–345, 347, 349, 352–356
404 Index
Rule (cont.) Seniority, 296, 349

See also Prescription Sequence, 25, 203, 216, 226
Ruling class, 42, 48, 49, 59, 295, Sequenced, 25, 207, 212, 325
296, 327 Sequencing, 25, 194, 207, 212, 213,
See also Elite; Upper class/ 215, 217, 235, 236, 282
upper-class Serao, Matilde, 9, 67–69, 115, 121,
181, 210, 217, 219, 223
Servant, 18, 39, 49, 50, 64, 200,
S 208–210, 216, 252, 260,
Saint-Simon, Duc de, 162, 163, 176 266, 312
Sales, Saint François de, 39, 108 Shyness, 122, 220, 242, 245, 246,
Salutation, 199, 316, 320, 321, 323, 248, 272
324, 327 See also Timidity
See also Greeting Sketch Engine, 21, 23, 72–74, 98,
Same-sex, 342, 343 123–134, 238, 270
Schematic, 135, 136, 192, 196, 235, ‘Sliding,’ 289, 321, 326
261, 328, 339, 351, 355 Society, 6, 44, 101, 144, 191, 237,
Script, 25, 47, 181, 191–227, 236, 283, 338
237, 246, 267, 268, 274, 284, Society etiquette, 6, 24, 56, 64, 120,
289–292, 294, 316, 328, 144, 149, 151, 153, 162,
338, 349 164–175, 179, 182, 183, 191,
Scripted, 20, 25, 192, 200, 206, 207, 193, 243, 266, 325, 338, 345,
220, 225–227, 235, 267, 281, 349, 355
328, 339, 351, 353, 355 Sofa, 269, 303–306, 350
See also Pre-negotiated Solecism, 239–241
Seat, 26, 209, 210, 269, 282, 283, Spain, 145, 151, 153, 154, 158,
299, 300, 303–306, 308–311, 162–164, 167, 174, 183
325, 350, 351 Spanish, 19, 24, 35, 144, 151, 153,
Seating arrangement, 179, 184, 303, 154, 158, 159, 162, 163,
325, 349 165–169, 171–174, 183
See also Table plan Spatial, 26, 178, 282, 303, 307, 308
Second education, 103, 110, Spectator, the, 36, 172
121, 122 Spencer-Oatey, Helen, 12, 17, 98, 338
Second-order, 14, 15, 18, 21, 99, Sprezzatura, 267, 355
114, 144, 191, 238, 271, See also Ease; Naturalness
273, 338 Standing, 9, 16, 204, 210, 219, 221,
Semi-institutional, 193, 328, 338, 222, 289, 290, 295, 299, 317
349, 351, 355 See also Status; Position
Index 405
Status, 8, 19, 40, 49, 51, 52, 61, 63, 294, 299–302, 307, 313, 319,
174, 205, 223, 236, 282, 283, 323–325, 338, 349, 352
301, 316, 354 Table manners, 39, 43, 212, 215,
See also Position; Standing 338, 352
Step, 25, 178–180, 182, 198–200, Table of precedence, 319, 323
202, 203, 205, 207, 209, See also Precedence table
210, 212, 215, 220, 223, 225, Table plan, 300, 301, 307, 325
226, 235, 246, 247, 266, See also Seating arrangement
281, 282 Tact, 26, 238, 265–274, 301, 302,
Sterne, Laurence, 148–151, 172 304, 338, 351, 353–355
Stigma, 60, 198, 303 Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento,
Strategic, 19, 20, 192 285, 286, 286n1, 287–289,
Street etiquette, 199, 261, 264, 321, 326
314, 315 Tasca, Luisa, 9, 34, 42, 43, 67,
Stringent, 328, 339, 344, 345 68, 71, 168
See also Coercive Terkourafi, Marina, 16, 35, 38, 144,
Subcorpus, 249 165, 196, 235–237
Subordinate, 281, 283 Term of endearment, 287, 326
See also Inferior Test, 136, 184, 226, 236, 240, 241,
Suffrage, 48 243, 251, 252, 257, 273,
See also Franchise 340, 356
Sunday best, 243, 256 Theatre, 37, 43, 51, 145, 155,
Superior, 5, 20, 26, 27, 39, 51, 53, 196, 206, 207, 282, 283,
61, 203, 208, 212, 221, 223, 308, 325
262, 264, 281–283, 285, 287, Thesaurus, 74, 123–129, 131,
290, 295, 308, 310, 312–321, 131n3, 132, 134, 238, 239
325, 327 Third Republic, 42, 53, 180, 287n2,
Superiority, 6, 160, 295, 321 293, 297
Tiktokker, 4, 342
Time, 46, 50, 102–104, 114, 124,
T 127, 131, 136, 184, 196, 198,
Taavitsainen, Irma, 13, 14, 16, 37, 199, 208, 209, 213, 216–220,
145, 237, 238 226, 236, 238, 245, 274, 290,
Table, 7, 23, 34, 39, 43, 56, 58, 70, 326, 337, 340, 342
114, 132, 151, 178, 194, 195, Timidity, 247, 248
201, 209, 210, 212, 213, 215, See also Shyness
218, 219, 226, 240, 241, 246, Timing, 26, 129, 162, 219,
260, 282, 285–288, 291, 292, 282, 314
406 Index
Title, 9, 23, 34, 39, 42, 53, 55–59, 268, 291, 292, 294, 297, 298,
61, 62, 65–67, 73, 74, 80, 300, 303, 306, 307, 316, 317,
100, 102, 102n1, 106, 113, 322, 323, 326, 327
117, 125, 127, 132, 151, 157, United States (US), 2–4, 6, 8, 10,
171, 172, 180, 183, 200, 206, 11, 21, 22, 34, 41, 52, 61–64,
210, 212, 223n2, 240, 249, 69–71, 73, 79, 82–84,
258–260, 273, 286n1, 287, 102n1, 109, 111, 124–128,
288, 291, 292, 296, 297, 130, 146–149, 161, 171,
318–320, 323–326, 352, 354 183, 199, 201, 202, 217, 220,
See also Honorific 223, 224, 238, 239, 247,
Traditional, 2–4, 13, 20, 47, 343 249, 261, 262, 264, 266, 268,
See also Conservative 270, 282, 298, 300, 306, 314,
Transclass, 26, 249, 250, 253, 272 321, 322, 325–327, 341,
Transferable skill, 194, 196–201 343, 350
Translation, 11, 18, 21, 35, 39, 43, Universalism, 40
62, 64, 73, 145, 160, 192, Universalist, 38, 44
202, 271, 294, 319, 321 See also Inclusivist
Trifle, 25, 194, 202, 226, 240, Unratified, 237, 240
248, 266 Upper class/upper-class, 35, 44,
See also Minutiae 47, 60, 251
Trusler, John, 58, 103, 104, 181, See also Elite; Ruling class
240, 292, 297 Upstart, 249, 252, 257, 258
Twitter, 2–4, 146, 341, 350 See also Parvenu; Social climber
Upwardly mobile, 26, 34, 36, 45,
120, 122, 136, 184, 227, 237,
U 244, 249, 250, 254, 256, 265,
Unceta Gómez, Luis, 35, 283, 284, 272, 274, 284, 337, 346
287, 290, 326, 328 Upward mobility, 8, 249,
Undesirable, 26, 34, 51, 119, 199, 250, 356
237, 261, 273 Usage, 6, 16, 17, 19, 38, 42, 64, 65,
Unease, 266, 271, 274, 338, 351–355 80, 101–103, 108, 115, 121,
United Kingdom (UK), 2, 4, 8, 11, 124, 131, 132, 146, 148,
21, 34, 52, 58–61, 63, 70–73, 150–152, 158, 162, 165,
80–82, 84, 102n1, 111, 116, 169, 171, 210, 211, 221,
119, 123, 126–128, 130, 222, 257–259, 261, 264, 265,
149–151, 161, 181, 199, 201, 305, 317, 318, 324, 328,
202, 217, 224, 238, 239, 338, 355
239n2, 247, 249, 264, 266, See also Custom; Habit
Index 407
V Walking, 200, 203, 272, 292,

Value, 14, 20, 22, 33, 35, 41, 47, 53, 311–314, 325
59, 99, 104, 113, 126, 160, Watts, Richard, 13, 14, 192, 287
175, 241, 242, 287, 343, 346, Wedding, 2, 6, 131, 132, 135, 136,
348, 353, 355 193, 198, 199, 208, 253, 307,
Varnish, 107–114 310, 338, 342, 343, 354, 356
Veneer, 107–114 Western, 17–19, 22, 24, 34, 69, 83,
Versailles, 162, 174, 176, 202, 84, 192, 193, 226, 328, 349
255, 256 White, 41, 64, 340, 342, 355, 356
Virtue, 22, 36, 37, 39, 40, 52, 97, Whiteness, 340
105, 108, 110, 114, 132, 136, Women’s magazine, 61, 67,
151, 156, 184, 226, 270, 274, 68, 73, 200
317, 346–348 Word cloud, 124, 125,
Visit, 25, 43, 46, 50, 51, 125, 129, 127, 129–134
132, 134–136, 182, 194–198, Word Sketch, 124, 126, 128–130,
200, 207–208, 210, 211, 213, 133–135, 270
220, 226, 227, 242, 245, 253, Working class, 6, 40, 48, 289, 356
274, 290, 305, 337, 349 World War I, 6, 48, 49, 53, 62,
See also Call 71–73, 328
Visitor, 15, 182, 196, 208–210, 220, World War II, 6
242, 243, 268, 269, 290, 294, Wouters, Cas, 6–8, 10, 11, 51, 52,
298, 303, 304 66, 162, 263, 264
Vocabulary, 21, 98, 144, 145, 164,
173, 183, 201, 257, 273
Vulgarism, 18, 257, 258 X
Xie, Chaoqun, 98
W
Walk, 215, 220, 247, 262, 273, 282, Z
309, 313, 314, 318 Zone, 68, 306, 325
See also Promenade Zoning, 307, 308, 313, 325

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Historical Etiquette

Etiquette Books in Nineteenth-Century

“Annick Paternoster’s book is a timely, insightful and accessible contribution to

ISBN 978-3-031-07577-3 ISBN 978-3-031-07578-0 (eBook)

This book is very much a product of continuous COVID-19 lockdowns

Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels and former Belgian

2.5 A Self-built Digital Corpus of Etiquette Books 72

6.6 Destructive Rituals 261

Fig. 2.1 Title page (Breton de la Martinière 1808). Reproduced from

Table 1.1 Popular US etiquette Twitter accounts with Twitter handle

1.1 An Etiquette Revival

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

the online presence of etiquette. My students and I never fail to be sur-

In all, tens of thousands of people follow US-based etiquette accounts on

There are protocol training academies, like Dutch Protocol Bureau,

1990s (2007: 176). He explains the term as the “formalization of previ-

In the new phase, certain informalisation offshoots remained operative,

Wouters documents the phenomenon with a survey of books of manners

There is increasing concern for manners in the modern West: newspaper

1.2 Etiquette Studies

books, is taken to document the growing interdependence of the upper

comparative study on etiquette is by Wouters (2007) who, as seen above,

In essentials, an etiquette book purchased in the 1830s would still have

Curtin concludes to the “unchanging nature of Victorian etiquette”

As regards French sources, Fisher’s position is very close to Kasson’s:

mean an abundance of codes. Rather, the abundance of texts lends greater

1.3 Politeness Studies and Research Methods

discussion of etiquette within politeness theory, Sara Mills (2017) uses

aims to extrapolate findings for a theory of social engagement. Indeed, to

expressions” (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 188). Metacommunication con-

Note that metadiscourse is defined as objective, reified discourse convey-

Terkourafi aptly describes the cyclical nature of this type of convention-

2013: 102). Importantly, although such works “lack the methodological

them? Whilst Culpeper (2017) focusses on politeness strategies in the

face-­saving devices, typical of today’s Western politeness. Studies of

the nineteenth century for American English (2020a: 160-183). His

Some of the most prototypical elements of non-imposition politeness,

In the nineteenth century “conventionally indirect requests” only have a

1.4 Outline of the Book

corpora—historical and contemporary lexicography, etymology, all con-

beyond, proposing two approaches. Firstly, it investigates how etiquette

ostracisation. Much anxiety is generated by the first entrance in society,

box, faces forward in a carriage, etc. Crucially, he or she enjoys comfort,

Berman, Magda. 2015. Zakelijke etiquette. De sleutel tot professioneel success.

Culpeper, J., and C. Hardaker. 2017. Impoliteness. In The Palgrave Handbook of

Dunn, C. D. 2011. Formal forms or verbal strategies? Politeness theory and

Lett, J. 1990. Emics and Etics: Notes on the Epistemology of Anthropology. In

Shvanyukova, P. 2019. Promoting Negative Politeness in Nineteenth-Century

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 33

2.2 Courtesy Books and Conduct Books

Terkourafi (2011) adopts a similar division and timeline where courtesy

2.2.1 Courtesy Books

The European tradition of courtesy literature emerges in the first half of

Richard Brathwait’s The English Gentleman (1630) (Morgan 1994: 11); in

2.2.2 Conduct Books

table manners, and it recommends control over intimate bodily functions

books”, which peaked to a “flood” of publications between “the 1770s

Advice on such practical matters as dressing, visiting or inviting guests to a

Dallett-­Hemphill (1999) the revolutionary period (1740–1820) saw the

a text that is intended for an inexperienced young adult or other youthful

Just like their European counterparts, American texts promote discipline

Although the Erasmian model of elementary civility stays popular, Fisher

common noun, and this happened precisely in the nineteenth century

2.5 A Self-built Digital Corpus of Etiquette Books 72

6.6 Destructive Rituals 261

1.1 An Etiquette Revival

1.2 Etiquette Studies

1.3 Politeness Studies and Research Methods

face-saving devices, typical of today’s Western politeness. Studies of

1.4 Outline of the Book

2.2 Courtesy Books and Conduct Books

2.2.1 Courtesy Books

2.2.2 Conduct Books

Dallett-Hemphill (1999) the revolutionary period (1740–1820) saw the

2.3 Etiquette Books, Social Class

2.4 Etiquette Books as a Product

2.4.2 The United Kingdom

2.4.3 The United States

2.4.4 The Netherlands

2.5 A Self-built Digital Corpus

2.5.1 The French Corpus

2.5.2 The UK-English Corpus

2.5.3 The US-English Corpus

2.5.4 The Dutch Corpus

2.5.5 The Italian Corpus