seems to have been continuous. On Sunday there was a mass in the
morning, afterward a grand dinner, at five o'clock a light
repast, at nine a supper, and later a musicale. One is inclined
to wonder if there was ever any retirement, any domesticity in
this life so full of movement and variety.

But it was really the freedom, wit, and brilliancy of the
conversation that constituted the chief attraction of the salons.
Men were in the habit of making the daily round of certain
drawing rooms, just as they drop into clubs in our time, sure of
more or less pleasant discussion on whatever subject was
uppermost at the moment, whether it was literature, philosophy,
art, politics, music, the last play, or the latest word of their
friends. The talk was simple, natural, without heat, without
aggressive egotism, animated with wit and repartee, glancing upon
the surface of many things, and treating all topics, grave or
gay, with the lightness of touch, the quick responsiveness that
make the charm of social intercourse.

The unwritten laws that governed this brilliant world were drawn
from the old ideas of chivalry, upon which the etiquette of the
early salons was founded. The fine morality and gentle virtues
which were the bases of these laws had lost their force in the
eighteenth century, but the manners which grew out of them had
passed into a tradition. If morals were in reality not pure, nor
principles severe, there was at least the vanity of posing as
models of good breeding. Honor was a religion; politeness and
courtesy were the current, though by no means always genuine,
coin of unselfishness and amiability; the amenities stood in the
place of an ethical code. Egotism, ill temper, disloyalty,