"Yes, something in the style of _Les Quatre Elements_ and _L'Europe
galante_."

"What times they were, when great nobles dressed the dancers!" said
Finot.

"Improper!" said Bixiou. "Isaure did not raise herself on the tips of
her toes, she stayed on the ground, she swayed in the dance without
jerks, and neither more nor less voluptuously than a young lady ought
to do. There was a profound philosophy in Marcel's remark that every
age and condition had its dance; a married woman should not dance like
a young girl, nor a little jackanapes like a capitalist, nor a soldier
like a page; he even went so far as to say that the infantry ought not
to dance like the cavalry, and from this point he proceeded to
classify the world at large. All these fine distinctions seem very far
away."

"Ah!" said Blondet, "you have set your finger on a great calamity. If
Marcel had been properly understood, there would have been no French
Revolution."

"It had been Godefroid's privilege to run over Europe," resumed
Bixiou, "nor had he neglected his opportunities of making a thorough
comparative study of European dancing. Perhaps but for profound
diligence in the pursuit of what is usually held to be useless
knowledge, he would never have fallen in love with this young lady; as
it was, out of the three hundred guests that crowded the handsome
rooms in the Rue Saint-Lazare, he alone comprehended the unpublished
romance revealed by a garrulous quadrille. People certainly noticed