, the successful carrying out of which was
greatly facilitated by their position at court; the women by marriages,
the conditions of which I prefer not to discuss. An undoubtedly genuine
leaven of names to be found in "D'Hozier,"[66] came to swell the ranks
of the hitherto somewhat shady courtiers of both sexes. Unfortunately,
their blood was not only thicker than water, and consequently more
easily heated, but they presumed upon the blueness of it to set public
opinion at defiance.

[Footnote 66: "D'Hozier," the French "Burke," so named after
its founder, Pierre D'Hozier, the creator of the science of
French genealogy.--EDITOR.]

"Ce qui, chez les mortels, est une effronterie
Entre nous autres demi-dieux
N'est qu'honnete galanterie."

Thus wrote the Duchesse du Maine[67] to her brother, of whom she was
perhaps a little more fond than even their blood-relationship
warranted. This privilege of stealing the horse, while the meaner-born
might not even look over the hedge, was claimed by the sons and the
daughters of the old noblesse, who condescended to grace the court of
Napoleon III., with a cynicism worthy of the most libertine traditions
of the ancien regime; and neither the Empress nor the Emperor did
anything to discountenance the claim. The former, provided that "tout se
passait en famille," closed her eyes to many things she ought not to
have tolerated. At the Tuileries, a certain measure of decorum was
preferred; at Compiegne and Fontainebleau, where the house was "packed"
as it were, the most flagrant eccentricities, to call them by no harsher
name, were not only permitted, but tacitly encouraged by the Empress.
This was especially the case when the first series of guests was gone.
It generally included the most serious portion of the visitors, "les
ennuyeurs, les empecheurs de danser en rond,"[68] as they were called.
The ladies belonging to, or classed in that category, presented, no
doubt, a striking contrast to those of the succeeding series, in which
the English element was not always conspicuous by its absence. The
costumes of the latter were something wonderful to behold. The cloth
skirt, which had then been recently introduced from England, and the
cloth dress, draped elegantly over it, enabled their wearers to defy all
kinds of weather. And as they went tramping down the muddy roads, their
coquettish little hats daintily poised on enormous chignons, their
walking bo