“Alas! it is true,” said Joseph Bridau. “In our day we cannot show those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the French Monarchy. The great lady’s fan is broken. A woman has nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a form of luxury.”
“Everything in France has aided and abetted the ‘perfect lady,’ ” said Daniel d’Arthez. “The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to die—emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded European salons, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing princesses, these are really only ladylike young women. In these days princes can find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they cannot even confer honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon was the last prince to avail himself of this privilege.”
“And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it,” said Lord Dudley.
“Nowadays princes have ladylike 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.
“Well, I will tell you,” said Émile Blondet to Count Adam. “One fine morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has not yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance at her is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a world of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale in his pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have at last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two very distinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an order; or else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of ten yards. She displays no gaudy colors, no openworked stockings, no over-elaborate waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her drawers fussing round her ankles. You will see that she is shod with prunella shoes, with sandals crossed over extremely fine cotton stockings, or plain gray silk stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the most exquisite simplicity. You notice that her gown is made of a neat and inexpensive material, but made in a
