'"But how?"
'"Must I shew you? You will have it!" answered the Duke; and he threw himself at the feet of our Corinna.
'"I wish everybody could see him," cried Mme de Staël.
'And everybody there did applaud with one accord. I would not answer for the same unanimity of approbation among the same people after they had reached the foot of the staircase.
'Everybody went away, only I stayed two hours with the mistress of the house and M. Schlegel, whose anger against the abbé did not wear out. These two hours Mme de Staël's conversation enchanted me, proving how much there is to attach us in one who can live at one and the same time so near and yet so far above the world.... I might pass many evenings in recounting in detail the conversation of this evening. There is more than matter for a book in a two hours' talk with Mme de Staël. I had better go to bed, that I may be able to tell you to-morrow all I can only leave you to guess at now.'[3]
And now we come to a later period, and Mme Sophie Gay shall give place to her lively and clever daughter Delphine, Mme Emile Girardin.
'Parisian society,' she writes, 'now, in 1839, offers the strangest aspect that ever was seen—a mixture of luxury and rudeness, English propriety and French negligence, political absurdities and revolutionary terrors, of which it is hard to form a just conception. The luxury of the salons is truly Eastern, not only the salons, indeed, but the anterooms: an anteroom in a handsome hotel is more richly adorned than the most beautiful drawing-room of the provincial prefecture. There, footmen more or less powdered—for there are rebels who choose to wear so little powder, that you would rather take them for millers, in livery, than for servants of the anteroom—these self-styled powdered lackeys offer you a great book, bound in velvet, with the corners bronzed and gilt, in which you are asked to write your name. If the lady of the house is visible, you are pompously ushered into the sanctuary—that is to say, into the second salon or parlour, or closet, or atelier, whichever best assorts with the pretensions of the lady. A dog darts upon you, barks, makes a show of biting you; he is quieted, submits, and regains his purple cushion, growling. Dogs are very much in fashion: together with the fire, flowers, an old aunt, and two toadies, they make up part of the living accompaniments of a genteel salon. As you are an elegant person, of course you are ill-dressed: your coat is dusty, your boots speckled with mud, your hair uncombed, you exhale a strong odour of tobacco. At first glance, such things seem rather disagreeable, common, and inelegant. No such thing: this is exactly the most fashionable style we have; it seems to say: "I have just dismounted from the finest horse in Paris. I am a man of fashion, of that distinguished position in society, that I can go in a morning to call on a duchess, dressed like a highwayman."
'On the other hand, the mistress of the house is charming. One must do women the justice to say, that they never take a pride in ugliness; that they never make elegance to consist in appearing to the greatest possible disadvantage. The woman whom you are visiting, then, is dressed in the best taste. A beautiful lace cap covers her light hair; she wears a soft figured Gros do Naples; her stockings are of exquisite fineness; her shoes irreproachable (we doubt not they bear the mark of either Gros or Müller); her Valenciennes cuffs are irresistible: everything betokens care and fastidious nicety. The freshness of her appearance is a satire on the negligence of yours. One cannot comprehend why this elegant woman should have prepared herself in so costly a manner to receive this man; and in the evening, really the contrast is greater still. Young men no longer wear stockings when they go into a party; yet they dare not just yet present themselves in boots; and therefore they come in brodequins, like students. We are in the age of the juste-milieu; and this is appropriate enough. The brodequin is in its right place half-way between shoes and boots. These ill-dressed men are surrounded by women blazing in jewels and diamonds, coronets and diadems. It is impossible to believe that such differently dressed beings can be of the same country and station in society; and yet they are all talking and chirping together: and what conversation! what a conflict of subjects! what an inexplicable picture of forethought and thoughtlessness! or rather of apathy!
'"And do you also believe in a revolution, M. de P——?" inquires a charming princess, spreading out her fan.
'"Certainly, madame; and I hope we shall have one sooner than some may think."