Astonished at seeing the women of the neighborhood only at long intervals, and for visits of a few minutes, Dinah asked Monsieur de Clagny the reason of this state of things.
“You are too superior a woman to be liked by other women,” said the lawyer.
Monsieur Gravier, when questioned by the forlorn fair, only, after much entreaty, replied:
“Well, lady fair, you are not satisfied to be merely charming. You are clever and well educated, you know every book that comes out, you love poetry, you are a musician, and you talk delightfully. Women cannot forgive so much superiority.”
Men said to Monsieur de la Baudraye:
“You who have such a Superior Woman for a wife are very fortunate——” And at last he himself would say:
“I who have a Superior Woman for a wife, am very fortunate,” etc.
Madame Piedefer, flattered through her daughter, also allowed herself to say such things—“My daughter, who is a very Superior Woman, was writing yesterday to Madame de Fontaine such and such a thing.”
Those who know the world—France, Paris—know how true it is that many celebrities are thus created.
Two years later, by the end of the year 1825, Dinah de la Baudraye was accused of not choosing to have any visitors but men; then it was said that she did not care for women—and that was a crime. Not a thing could she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism and misrepresentation. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de la Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with her on her isolation: