was too feeble to change.



There was in their lives a first phase, lasting six years, during
which Dinah, alas! became utterly provincial. In Paris there are
several kinds of women: the duchess and the financier's wife, the
ambassadress and the consul's wife, the wife of the minister who is a
minister, and of him who is no longer a minister; then there is the
lady--quite the lady--of the right bank of the Seine and of the left.
But in the country there is but one kind of woman, and she, poor
thing, is the provincial woman.

This remark points to one of the sores of modern society. It must be
clearly understood: France in the nineteenth century is divided into
two broad zones--Paris, and the provinces. The provinces jealous of
Paris; Paris never thinking of the provinces but to demand money. Of
old, Paris was the Capital of the provinces, and the court ruled the
Capital; now, all Paris is the Court, and all the country is the town.

However lofty, beautiful, and clever a girl born in any department of
France may be on entering life, if, like Dinah Piedefer, she marries
in the country and remains there, she inevitably becomes the
provincial woman. In spite of every determination, the commonplace of
second-rate ideas, indifference to dress, the culture of vulgar
people, swamp the sublimer essence hidden in the youthful plant; all
is over, it falls into decay. How should it be otherwise? From their
earliest years girls bred in the country see none but provincials;
they cannot imagine anything superior, their choice lies among
mediocrities; provincial fathers marry their daughters to provincial