le change, at least up to the conclusion of the Orleans
reign in 1848. The volume from which these last extracts are made, is
entitled _Lettres Parisiennes_. It has all the wit and talent of the
cleverest of fashionable Frenchwomen. The tone is sometimes extremely
good--better than we were led to expect; but the picture it presents
is about as mournful a one as pictures of French frivolity usually
are. We will, however, leave them to make their own impression. First,
then, for Mme Sophie Gay and the ancient _salons_.

Now that the empire of the salons, she observes, has passed away with
that of women, it would be difficult to convey to our youthful France
an idea of the influence which certain of these were wont to exercise,
in state affairs and in the choice of men in power. To have a salon is
far from an easy thing; a crowd of people may, and do every day, give
concerts and balls in their gilded apartments, and yet they may never
have salons. Essential conditions are required which can rarely be
found in conjunction. The most important of all is the talent and
character of the lady who does the honours. Without being old, she
must have passed the age in which a woman is chiefly spoken of for her
prettiness or her dress, and be at that point of time when a woman's
mind may rule over the self-love of a man more than her youthful
attractions enabled her to rule over his heart.

Rank and fortune were important items, not quite indispensable,
however; for Mme du Deffand was poor, and Mme Geoffrin was the wife of
a manufacturer. In the salons of these two women edicts were framed,
and academicians reared; but the questions discussed there were not
nearly of the importance of those to which Mme de Stael's salon gave
rise. It was essential that the mistress of the house should have a
decided and superior taste in a variety of ways; also a total absence
of those little, envious feelings which might have tended to exclude
the fashionable woman or successful author. She must know how to bear
enemies in her presence, to place talents according to their worth, to
shew the tiresome the way to the door--things which require address
and courage.

The salon of Mme de Stael, during three different periods of her life,
took considerable modification from the changes of the time; but it
was always the same in power, if not in brilliancy.

Under the first Revolution, it was the scene of most momentous
deliberations. Barnave, Talleyran