e
Journal des Debats and the Gazette de France are exceptions.

Assuredly, every good journalist must be somewhat effeminate--that
is, at the command of the public, supple in following unconsciously the
shades of public opinion, wavering and varying, sceptical and credulous,
wicked and devout, a braggart and a true man, enthusiastic and ironical,
and always convinced while believing in nothing.

Foreigners, our anti-types, as Mme. Abel called them, the stubborn
English and the heavy Germans, regard us with a certain amazement mingled
with contempt, and will continue to so regard us till the end of time.
They consider us frivolous. It is not that, it is that we are girls. And
that is why people love us in spite of our faults, why they come back to
us despite the evil spoken of us; these are lovers' quarrels! The
effeminate man, as one meets him in this world, is so charming that he
captivates you after five minutes' chat. His smile seems made for you;
one cannot believe that his voice does not assume specially tender
intonations on their account. When he leaves you it seems as if one had
known him for twenty years. One is quite ready to lend him money if he
asks for it. He has enchanted you, like a woman.

If he commits any breach of manners towards you, you cannot bear any
malice, he is so pleasant when you next meet him. If he asks your pardon
you long to ask pardon of him. Does he tell lies? You cannot believe it.
Does he put you off indefinitely with promises that he does not keep? One
lays as much store by his promises as though he had moved heaven and
earth to render them a service.

When he admires anything he goes into such raptures that he convinces
you. He once adored Victor Hugo, whom he now treats as a back number. He
would have fought for Zola, whom he has abandoned for Barbey and
d'Aurevilly. And when he admires, he permits no limitation, he would slap
your face for a word. But when he becomes scornful, his contempt is
unbounded and allows of no protest.

In fact, he understands nothing.

Listen to two girls talking.

"Then you are angry with Julia?" "I slapped her face." "What had she
done?" "She told Pauline that I had no money thirteen months out of
twelve, and Pauline told Gontran--you understand." "You were living
together in the Rue Clanzel?" "We lived together four years in the Rue
Breda; we quarrelled about a pair of stockings that she said I had worn
--it wasn't true--silk stockings that sh