"When posterity shall have
followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine as
those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but
one Madame de Sevigne; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly
write better than she did, and who do not publish their letters.
Whether the Frenchwoman be called 'perfect lady,' or great lady, she
will always be /the/ woman among women.
"Emile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman
of the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who
chirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it
must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical,
because they must always and under all circumstances be surrounded by
greater perils. I have seen much of the world, I have studied it
perhaps too late; but in cases where the illegality of your feelings
might be excused, I have always observed the effects of I know not
what chance--which you may call Providence--inevitably overwhelming
such as we consider light women.
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