6. The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by
men of taste. The association of these masters with each other, and
with men intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and
stimulating. The good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are
repeated and adopted. By swift consent, everything superfluous is
dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners[398] show
themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a subtler
science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the
skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword,--points
and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a more
transparent atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and
not a misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim to
facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to
energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids
traveling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road,
and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space. These forms very
soon become fixed, and a fine sense of propriety is cultivated with
more heed, that it becomes a badge of social and civil distinctions.
Thus grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the
most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which
morals and violence assault in vain.

7. There exists a strict relation between the class of power, and the
exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled or filling
from the first. The strong men usually give some allowance even to the
petulances of fashion, for that affinity they find in it.
Napoleon,[399] child of the revolution, destroyer of the old
noblesse,[400] never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain:[401]
doubtless with the feeling, that fashion is a homage to men of his
stamp. Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue.