lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded
European _salons_, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out
like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or
of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of
abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against
the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of
the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are
at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing
princesses, these are really only ladylike young women. In these days
princes can find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they cannot
even confer honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon
was the last prince to avail himself of this privilege."

"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.

"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their
opera-box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher
by a hair's breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the
citizen class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor
altogether _bourgeoises_," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.

"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
longer has the quality of a spoken _feuilleton_--delightful calumnies
graced by elegant language. We read _feuilletons_ written in a dialect
which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
company used to meet."