But when
they attend the balls of the _Bourgeoisie_, it is the etiquette for them to
wear plain clothes: at the balls of the _Bourgeoisie_, therefore, not an
uniform is to be seen. I observed by far the prettiest women at the balls
of the _Bourgeoisie_, and very many are to be found there who in education
and accomplishments fully equal those of the _Noblesse_, and this is no
small merit, for the women in Saxony of the higher classes are extremely
well educated; most of them are proficient in music and are versed in
French and Italian litterature. They seem amiable and goodnatured and by no
means _minaudieres_, as Lady Mary Wortley Montague has rather unjustly
termed them; for they appear to me to be the most frank, artless creatures
I ever beheld, and to have no sort of _minauderie_ or _coquetterie_ about
them. Beauty is the appanage of the Saxon women, hence the proverb in
rhyme:
Darauf bin ich gegangen nach Sachsen,
Wo die schoenen Maedchen auf den Bauemen wachsen.
In English:
Behold me landed now on Saxon ground,
Where lovely damsels on the trees are found.
A taste for litterature is indeed general throughout the whole nation; and
this city is considered as the Athens of Germany.
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