which history finds him. How is it possible to lead a party
without conforming to its ideas? or to shine in any epoch unless
a man represents the ideas of his time? The wise and prudent
head of a party is continually obliged to bow to the prejudices
and follies of its rear; and this is the cause of actions for
which he is afterwards criticised by this or that historian
sitting at a safer distance from terrific popular explosions,
coolly judging the passion and ferment without which the great
struggles of the world could not be carried on at all. And if
this is true of the Historical Comedy of the Centuries, it is
equally true in a more restricted sphere in the detached scenes
of the national drama known as the _Manners of the Age_.



At the beginning of that ephemeral life led by the Faubourg
Saint-Germain under the Restoration, to which, if there is any
truth in the above reflections, they failed to give stability,
the most perfect type of the aristocratic caste in its weakness
and strength, its greatness and littleness, might have been found
for a brief space in a young married woman who belonged to it.
This was a woman artificially educated, but in reality ignorant;
a woman whose instincts and feelings were lofty while the thought
which should have controlled them was wanting. She squandered
the wealth of her nature in obedience to social conventions; she
was ready to brave society, yet she hesitated till her scruples
degenerated into artifice. With more wilfulness than real force
of character, impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted
with more brain than heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely
a coquette, and above all things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant