man taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon was the last
prince to avail himself of this privilege."

"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.

"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-box
with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair's
breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen
class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor altogether
_bourgeoises_," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.

"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
longer has the quality of a spoken _feuilleton_--delightful calumnies
graced by elegant language. We read _feuilletons_ written in a dialect
which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
company used to meet."

"The knell of the highest society is tolling," said a Russian Prince.
"Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word _lady_."

"You are right, Prince," said de Marsay. "The 'perfect lady,' issuing
from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class, and
the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression of
these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit,
and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great
ladies in France, but there will be 'ladies' for a long time, elected by
public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among
the fair sex what a 'gentleman' is in England."

"And that they call progress!" exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. "I
should like to know where the progress lies?"

"Why, in this," said Madame de Nucingen. "Formerly a woman might have
the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an
impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a
thick hand--she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these days,
even if she were a Montmorency--if a Montmorency would ever be such a
creature--she would not be a lady."

"But what do you mean by a 'perfect lady'?" asked Count Adam Laginski.

"She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system
as applied to the fair sex," said the