"Well, lady fair, you are not satisfied to be merely charming. You are
clever and well educated, you know every book that comes out, you love
poetry, you are a musician, and you talk delightfully. Women cannot
forgive so much superiority."

Men said to Monsieur de la Baudraye:

"You who have such a Superior Woman for a wife are very fortunate----"
And at last he himself would say:

"I who have a Superior Woman for a wife, am very fortunate," etc.

Madame Piedefer, flattered through her daughter, also allowed herself
to say such things--"My daughter, who is a very Superior Woman, was
writing yesterday to Madame de Fontaine such and such a thing."

Those who know the world--France, Paris--know how true it is that many
celebrities are thus created.



Two years later, by the end of the year 1825, Dinah de la Baudraye was
accused of not choosing to have any visitors but men; then it was said
that she did not care for women--and that was a crime. Not a thing
could she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism and
misrepresentation. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman
can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de la
Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with her
on her isolation: