This view, which was more or less correct, kept them from visiting at La Baudraye. Dinah, attainted and convicted of pedantry, because she spoke grammatically, was nicknamed the Sappho of Saint-Satur. At last everybody made insolent game of the great qualities of the woman who had thus roused the enmity of the ladies of Sancerre. And they ended by denying a superiority—after all, merely comparative!—which emphasized their ignorance, and did not forgive it. Where the whole population is hunch-backed, a straight shape is the monstrosity; Dinah was regarded as monstrous and dangerous, and she found herself in a desert.
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.