ABSTRACT
‘Company Manners’ was first published in Household Words in the number for 20 May 1854 (9, pp. 323–31). It followed ‘Modern Greek Songs’ (25 February) and was EG’s last contribution prior to the serialisation of North and South, which began on 2 September. The ostensible peg for the essay was a series of articles on eminent French women of the seventeenth century by the French philosopher Victor Cousin in the Revue des Deux Mondes. EG’s piece was undoubtedly prompted by her visit to Paris in May 1853, when she met Mary Elizabeth Mohl, née Clarke, through her friends the Schwabes (see the headnote to ‘Modern Greek Songs’, p. 277). Her friendship with the gregarious and charismatic Madame Mohl and her husband developed during this, and subsequent visits, including a fortnight’s stay in January 1854, accompanied by her daughter Marianne.
