n lessons from the comedians Sainval and Larive, come
to Versailles to play before the king and queen in Voltaire's "Oreste,"
and on the little fellow being interrogated about the classic authors,
he replies to a lady, the mother of three charming girls, "Madame,
Anacreon is the only poet I can think of here!" Another, of the same
age, replies to a question of Prince Henry of Prussia with an agreeable
impromptu in verse.[2240] To cause witticisms, trivialities, and
mediocre verse to germinate in a brain eight years old, what a triumph
for the culture of the day! It is the last characteristic of the regime
which, after having stolen man away from public affairs, from his own
affairs, from marriage, from the family, hands him over, with all his
sentiments and all his faculties, to social worldliness, him and all
that belong to him. Below him fine ways and forced politeness
prevail, even with his servants and tradesmen. A Frontin has a gallant
unconstrained air, and he turns a compliment.[2241] An Abigail needs
only to be a kept mistress to become a lady. A shoemaker is a "monsieur
in black," who says to a mother on saluting the daughter, "Madame, a
charming young person, and I am more sensible than ever of the value of
your kindness," on which the young girl, just out of a convent, takes
him for a suitor and blushes scarlet. Undoubtedly less unsophisticated
eyes would distinguish the difference between this pinchbeck louis d'or
and a genuine one; but their resemblance suffices to show the universal
action of the central mint-machinery which stamps both with the same
effigy, the base metal and the refined gold.

IV. Enjoyment.

The charm of this life.--Etiquette in the 18th Century.--Its
perfection and its resources.--Taught and prescribed under
feminine authority.

A society which obtains such ascendancy must possess some charm; in no
country, indeed, and in no age has so perfect a social art rendered life
so agreeable. Paris is the school-house of Europe, a school of urbanity
to which the youth of Russia, Germany, and England resort to become
civilized. Lord Chesterfield in his letters never tires of reminding
his son of this, and of urging him into these drawing-rooms, which will
remove "his Cambridge rust." Once familiar with them they are never
abandoned, or if one is obliged to leave them, one always sighs for
them. "Nothing is comparable," says Voltaire,[2242] "to the genial
life one leads th