ng and fashioning her. Every movement she
made, every garment she wore, all the care she applied to her
appearance--all breathed this _volupte_.

In paintings it was found in impure images, coquettish immodesties, in
couples embraced in the midst of flowers, in scenes of tenderness:
all these representations were hung in the rooms of young girls, above
their beds. They grew up to know _volupte_, and, when old enough, they
longed for it. It was useless for women to try to escape its power,
and chastity naturally disappeared under these temptations. The young
girl inherited the impure instincts of the mother, and, when matured,
was ready and eager for all that could enchant and gratify the senses.

True domestic friendship and intimacy were rare, because the husband
given to a young girl had passed through a long list of mistresses,
and talked--from experience--gallant confidences which took away the
veil of illusion. She was immediately taken into society, where she
became familiar with the spicy proverbs and the salty prologues of
the theatre, where supposedly decent women were present, in curtained
boxes. At the suppers and dinners, by songs and plays, at the
gatherings where held forth Duclos and others like him, in the midst
of champagne, _ivresse d'esprit_, and eloquence, she was taught and
saw the corruption of society and marriage, the disrespect to modesty;
in such an atmosphere all trace of innocence was destroyed. She was
taught that faithfulness to a husband belonged only to the people,
that it was an evidence of stupidity. Manners, customs, and even
religion were against the preservation of innocence and purity; and in
this depravity the abbes were the leaders.

Such conditions were dangerous and disastrous not to young girls
only, they affected the young men also; the latter, amidst this
social demoralization, developed their evil tendencies, and, in a few
generations, there was formed a Paris completely debauched. Love meant
nothing more elevated than desire; for man, the paramount idea was
to have or possess; for woman, to capture. There was no longer any
mystery, any secret; the lover left his carriage at the door of
his love, as if to publish his good fortune; he regularly made his
appearance at her house, at the hour of the toilette, at dinner and at
all the fetes; the public announcement of the liaison was made at the
theatre when he sat in her box.

There came a period when so-called love fell so