ion Delorme, who combined
with the intellectual brilliancy and fine courtesy of the Greek Aspasia
the moral graces that give so poetic a fascination to the Christian and
medieval types. Mme. de la Fayette painted with rare delicacy the old
struggle between passion and duty, but character triumphs over passion,
and duty is the final victor. In spite of the low standards of the age,
the ideal woman of society, as of literature, was noble, tender, modest,
pure, and loyal.

But the eighteenth century brings new types to the surface. The
precieuses, with their sentimental theories and naive reserves, have
had their day. It is no longer the world of Mme. de Rambouillet that
confronts us with its chivalrous models, its refined platonism, and its
flavor of literature, but rather that of the epicurean Ninon, brilliant,
versatile, free, lax, skeptical, full of intrigue and wit, but without
moral sense of spiritual aspiration. Literary portraits and ethical
maxims have given place to a spicy mixture of scandal and philosophy,
humanitarian speculations and equivocal bons mots. It is piquant
and amusing, this light play of intellect, seasoned with clever and
sparkling wit, but the note of delicacy and sensibility is quite gone.
Society has divested itself of many crudities and affectations perhaps,
but it has grown as artificial and self-conscious as its rouged and
befeathered leaders.

The woman who presided over these centers of fashion and intelligence
represent to us the genius of social sovereignty. We fall under the
glamour of the luminous but factitious atmosphere that surrounded them.
We are dazzled by the subtlety and clearness of their intellect, the
brilliancy of their wit. Their faults are veiled by the smoke of the
incense we burn before them, or lost in the dim perspective. It is
fortunate, perhaps, for many of our illusions, that the golden age,
which is always receding, is seen at such long range that only the
softly colored outlines are visible. Men and women are transfigured in
the rosy light that rests on historic heights as on far-off mountain
tops. But if we bring them into closer view, and turn on the pitiless
light of truth, the aureole vanishes, a thousand hidden defects are
exposed, and our idol stands out hard and bare, too often divested of
its divinity and its charm.

To do justice to these women, we must take the point of view of an age
that was corrupt to the core. It is needless to discuss here the