“Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair’s breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen class and those of the nobility—not altogether noble nor altogether bourgeoises,” said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
“The press has fallen heir to the Woman,” exclaimed Rastignac. “She no longer has the quality of a spoken feuilleton—delightful calumnies graced by elegant language. We read feuilletons written in a dialect which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as an undertaker’s mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant company used to meet.”
“The knell of the highest society is tolling,” said a Russian Prince. “Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word lady.”
“You are right, Prince,” said de Marsay. “The ‘perfect lady,’ issuing from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class, and the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression of these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit, and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great ladies in France, but there will be ‘ladies’ for a long time, elected by public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among the fair sex what a ‘gentleman’ is in England.”
“And that they call progress!” exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. “I should like to know where the progress lies?”
“Why, in this,” said Madame de Nucingen. “Formerly a woman might have the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a thick hand—she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these days, even if she were a Montmorency—if a Montmorency would ever be such a creature—she would not be a lady.”
“But what do you mean by a ‘perfect lady’?” asked Count Adam Laginski.
“She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system as applied to the fair sex,” said the Minister. “Every revolution has a word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it.”
“You are right,” said the Russian, who had come to make a literary reputation in Paris. “The explanation of certain words added from time to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history. Organize, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up Napoleon completely.”
“But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!” the young Pole exclaimed, with some impatience.