Cette Dame de Volupte
Qui, pour plus grande surete,
Fit son paradis de ce monde.

"Courte et bonne," said the favorite daughter of the Regent, in the same
spirit.

It is against such a background that the women who figure so prominently
in the salons are outlined. Such was the air they breathed, the spirit
they imbibed. That it was fatal to the finer graces of character goes
without saying. Doubtless, in quiet and secluded nooks, there were
many human wild flowers that had not lost their primitive freshness and
delicacy, but they did not flourish in the withering atmosphere of
the great world. The type in vogue savored of the hothouse. With its
striking beauty of form and tropical richness of color, it had no
sweetness, no fragrance. Many of these women we can only consider on the
worldly and intellectual side. Sydney Smith has aptly characterized them
as "women who violated the common duties of life, and gave very pleasant
little suppers." But standing on the level of a time in which their
faults were mildly censured, if at all, their characteristic gifts shine
out with marvelous splendor. It is from this standpoint alone that we
can present them, drawing the friendly mantle of silence over grave
weaknesses and fatal errors.

In this century, in which women have so much wider scope, when they may
paint, carve, act, sing, write, enter professional life, or do whatever
talent and inclination dictate, without loss of dignity or prestige,
unless they do it ill,--and perhaps even this exception is a trifle
superfluous,--it is difficult to understand fully, or estimate
correctly, a society in which the best feminine intellect was centered
upon the art of entertaining and of wielding an indirect power through
the minds of men. These Frenchwomen had all the vanity that lies at
the bottom of the Gallic character, but when the triumphs of youth were
over, the only legitimate path to individual distinction was that of
social influence. This was attained through personal charm, supplemented
by more or less cleverness, or through the gift of creating a society
that cast about them an illusion of talent of which they were often only
the reflection. To these two classes belong the queens of the salons.
But the most famous of them only carried to the point of genius a talent
that was universal.

In its best estate a brilliant social life is essentially an external
one. Its charm lies largely in the superficial graces,