Page 1058 - les-miserables

said: ‘The Cardinals are the peers of France of Rome; the
lords are the peers of France of England.’ Moreover, as it is
indispensable that the Revolution should be everywhere in
this century, this feudal salon was, as we have said, domi-
nated by a bourgeois. M. Gillenormand reigned there.
There lay the essence and quintessence of the Parisian
white society. There reputations, even Royalist reputations,
were held in quarantine. There is always a trace of anarchy
in renown. Chateaubriand, had he entered there, would have
produced the effect of Pere Duchene. Some of the scoffed-
at did, nevertheless, penetrate thither on sufferance. Comte
Beug*** was received there, subject to correction.
The ‘noble’ salons of the present day no longer resemble
those salons. The Faubourg Saint-Germain reeks of the fag-
ot even now. The Royalists of to-day are demagogues, let us
record it to their credit.
At Madame de T.’s the society was superior, taste was
exquisite and haughty, under the cover of a great show of
politeness. Manners there admitted of all sorts of involun-
tary refinements which were the old regime itself, buried
but still alive. Some of these habits, especially in the mat-
ter of language, seem eccentric. Persons but superficially
acquainted with them would have taken for provincial that
which was only antique. A woman was called Madame la
Generale. Madame la Colonelle was not entirely disused.
The charming Madame de Leon, in memory, no doubt, of
the Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred
this appellation to her title of Princesse. The Marquise de
Crequy was also called Madame la Colonelle.

1058 Les Miserables