eternal sagacity of man has failed to take notice of this profession and
to resent the injustice done it by the scorn of men. The elected kings
of the people, the man who adopts the word father according to the
flesh, are descendants of a courtesan.

For the rest, it must be admitted that many who follow this noble
profession are unworthy of it and only too well justify the ignominy
which is levelled against the entire class. You see these miserable
creatures with livid complexions and haggard eyes, with voices of
Stentor, breathing out at the same time the poisons which circulate in
their veins and the liquors with which they are intoxicated; you see on
their blemished and emaciated bodies, the marks of beings more hideous
than they (twenty come to satisfy their brutal passions for every one of
them); you listen to their vile language, you hear their oaths and
revolting expressions: to go to these Megeres is often to encounter
brigands and assassins: what a spectacle! It is the deformity of vice
in the rags of indigence.

Ah! But these are not courtesans, they are the dregs of cities. A
courtesan worthy of the name is a beautiful woman, gracious and amiable,
at whose home gather men of letters and men of the world; the first
magistrates, the greatest captains: and who keeps men of all professions
in a happy state of mind because she is pleasing to them, she inspires in
them a desire for reciprocal pleasure: such an one was Aspasia who, after
having charmed the cultured people of Athens was for a long time the good
companion of Pericles, and contributed much, perhaps, towards making his
century what it was, the age of taste in arts and letters. Such an
one also was Phryne, Lais, Glycera, and their names will always be
celebrated; such, also, was Ninon d'Enclos, one of the ornaments of
the century of Louis XIV, and Clairon, the first who realized all the