admitting her indebtedness to a royal wife. "To her," wrote Madame de
Maintenon of the Queen of Louis; "I owe the King's affection. Picture
a sovereign worn out with state affairs, intrigues, and ceremonies,
possessed of a _confidante_ always the same, always calm, always
rational, equally able to instruct and to soothe, with the intelligence
of a confessor and the winning gentleness of a woman." It is peculiar
to the sex there to escape outward soil, whatever may be their moral
exposure; for one instinctively recognizes a Frenchwoman by her clean
boots, even in the muddiest thoroughfare, her spotless muslin cap,
kerchief, and collar. She retains also her individuality after marriage
better than the fair of other nations, not only in character, but in
name, the maiden appellative being joined to her husband's, so that,
although a Madame, she keeps the world informed that she was _nee_ of a
family whose title, however modest, she will not drop. The maxims, so
prevalent in France, which declare matrimony the tomb of love, are
the legitimate result of a superficial theory of life and the mutual
independence of the sexes thence arising; accordingly we are assured,
"C'est surtout entre mari et femme que l'amour a le moins de chance de
succes. Ils vieillirent ensemble comme deux portraits de famille, sans
aucune intimite, aucun profit pour l'esprit, et arrives au dernier
relais de leur existence, le souvenir n'avait rien a faire entre eux."

It is a curious illustration at once of the mobility and the isolation
of the French mind, that, while it assimilates elements within its
sphere which in other nations are kept comparatively apart, it rejects
the process in regard to foreign material. Thus, in no other capital are
politics and literature so interwoven with society; the love-affairs of
a minister directly influence his policy; the tone of the _salon_
often inspires and moulds the author; the social history of an epoch
necessarily includes the genius of its statesmanship and of its letters,