"Because, in these days, under a regime
which makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms,
small pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does
that prove that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human
heart change because you change your coat? In all ages the passions
remain the same. I know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime
sufferings, which lack the publicity--the glory, if you choose--which
formerly gave lustre to the errors of some women. But though one may
not have saved a King of France, one is not the less an Agnes Sorel.
Do you believe that our dear Marquise d'Espard is not the peer of
Madame Doublet, or Madame du Deffant, in whose rooms so much evil was
spoken and done? Is not Taglioni a match for Camargo? or Malibran the
equal of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets superior to those of the
eighteenth century? If at this moment, through the fault of the
Grocers who govern us, we have not a style of our own, had not the
Empire its distinguishing stamp as the age of Louis XV. had, and was
not its splendor fabulous? Have the sciences lost anything?"
"I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
great," replied the Comte de Vandenesse.
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