woman who was rebellious to marriage was now in a city which had just
had a revolution.

The extraordinary effervescence of Paris in 1831 can readily be
imagined. There was tempest in the air, and this tempest was bound to
break out here or there, either immediately or in the near future, in an
insurrection. Every one was feverishly anxious to destroy everything, in
order to create all things anew. In everything, in art, ideas and even
in costume, there was the same explosion of indiscipline, the same
triumph of capriciousness. Every day some fresh system of government was
born, some new method of philosophy, an infallible receipt for bringing
about universal happiness, an unheard-of idea for manufacturing
masterpieces, some invention for dressing up and having a perpetual
carnival in the streets. The insurrection was permanent and masquerade
a normal state. Besides all this, there was a magnificent burst of youth
and genius. Victor Hugo, proud of having fought the battle of _Hernani_,
was then thinking of _Notre-Dame_ and climbing up to it. Musset had just
given his _Contes d'Espagne el d'Italie_. Stendhal had published _Le
Rouge et le Noir_, and Balzac _La Peau de Chagrin_. The painters of the
day were Delacroix and Delaroche. Paganini was about to give his
first concert at the Opera. Such was Paris in all its impatience and
impertinence, in its confusion and its splendour immediately after the
Revolution.

The young wife, who had snapped her bonds asunder, breathed voluptuously
in this atmosphere. She was like a provincial woman enjoying Paris to
the full. She belonged to the romantic school, and was imbued with the
principle that an artist must see everything, know everything, and have
experienced himself all that he puts into his books. She found a little
group of her friends from Berry in Paris, among others Felix Pyat,