Routs

Routs.

From Louis Simond 1817 edition at 35-36. Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain During the Years 1810 and 1811.

Great assemblies are called routs or parties; but the people who give them in their invitations only say that they will be at home such a day, and this some weeks beforehand. The house in which this takes place is frequently stripped from top to bottom; beds, drawers, and all but ornamental furniture is carried out of sight, to make room for a crowd of well-dressed people, received at the door of the principal apartment by the mistress of the house, standing, who smiles at every new comer with a look of acquaintance. Nobody sits; there is no conversation, no cards, no music; only elbowing, turning, and winding from room to room; then, at the end of a quarter of an hour, escaping to the hall door to wait for the carriage, spending more time upon the threshold among footmen than you had done above stairs with their masters. From this rout you drive to another, where, after waiting your turn to arrive at the door, perhaps half an hour, the street being full of carriages, you alight, begin the same round, and end it in the same manner. The public knows there is a party in a house by two signs; first, an immense crowd of carriages before the house,--then every curtain, and every shutter of every window wide open, shewing apartments all in a blaze of light, with heads innumerable, black and white (powdered or not), in continual motion. This custom is so general that having, a few days ago, five or six persons in the evening with us, we observed our servant had left the windows thus exposed, thinking, no doubt, that this was a rout after our fashion.