reviews, books, and dramas. This eternal subject grew more and more
the fashion. The lover, that nightmare of husbands, was everywhere,
except perhaps in homes, where, in point of fact, under the bourgeois
regime, he was less seen than formerly. It is not when every one
rushes to their window and cries "Thief!" and lights the streets, that
robbers abound. It is true that during those years so fruitful of
turmoil--urban, political, and moral--a few matrimonial catastrophes
took place; but these were exceptional, and less observed than they
would have been under the Restoration. Nevertheless, women talked a
great deal together about books and the stage, then the two chief
forms of poesy. The lover thus became one of their leading topics,--a
being rare in point of act and much desired. The few affairs which
were known gave rise to discussions, and these discussions were, as
usually happens, carried on by immaculate women.

A fact worthy of remark is the aversion shown to such conversations by
women who are enjoying some illicit happiness; they maintain before
the eyes of the world a reserved, prudish, and even timid countenance;
they seem to ask silence on the subject, or some condonation of their
pleasure from society. When, on the contrary, a woman talks freely of
such catastrophes, and seems to take pleasure in doing so, allowing
herself to explain the emotions that justify the guilty parties, we
may be sure that she herself is at the crossways of indecision, and
does not know what road she might take.

During this winter, the Comtesse de Vandenesse heard the great voice
of the social world roaring in her ears, and the wind of its stormy
gusts blew round her. Her pretended friends, who maintained their
reputations at the height of their rank and their positions, often
produced in her presence the seductive idea of the lover; they cast