It was in such an atmosphere as this that the daughters of these women
grew up. Their talents found opportunity for display at the public
dances where some of them would in time attract especial attention.
Some became opera singers, dancers, or actresses, and were very
popular; others became influential, and, through the efforts of
some lover, allured about them a circle of ambitious _debauches_ or
aspirants for social favors. Through their adventures they made their
way up in the world to high society.

From this element of prostitution was disentangled, to a large extent,
the great gallantry of the eighteenth century. This was accomplished
by adding an elegance to debauch, by clothing vice with a sort of
grandeur, and by adorning scandal with a semblance of the glory and
grace of the courtier of old. Possessing the fascination of all gifts,
prodigalities, follies, with all the appetites and tendencies of the
time, these women attracted the society of the period--the poets,
the artists, even the scientists, the philosophers, and the nobility.
Their reputation increased with the number and standing of their
lovers. The genius of the eighteenth century circled about these
street belles--they represented the fortune of pleasure.

As the church would not countenance the marriage of an actress, she
was forced to renounce the theatre when she would marry, but once
married a permit to return to the stage was easily obtained. Society
was not so severe as the laws; it received actresses, sought out, and
even adored them; it received the women of the stage as equals, and
many of them were married by counts and dukes, given a title, and
presented at court. The regular type of the prostitute was tolerated
and even received by society; "a word of anger, malediction, or
outrage, was seldom raised against these women: on the contrary, pity
and the commiseration of charity and tenderness were felt for them
and manifested." This was natural, for many of them--through
notoriety--reached society and, as mistresses of the king, even the
throne itself. "If such women as Mme. de Pompadour were esteemed, what
principles remained in the name of which to judge without pity and to
condemn the _debauches_ of the street," says Mme. de Choiseul, one of
the purest of women.

This class usually created and established the styles. There is a
striking contrast between the standards of beauty and fashions of the
respective periods of Louis XIV. and