the provinces, and intrusted to the care
of some devout dowager who keeps him without a sou; or, perhaps, to some
shop assistant who goes to bed at midnight wearied out with folding
and unfolding calico, and rises at seven o'clock to arrange the window;
often again to some man of science or poetry, who lives monastically in
the embrace of a fine idea, who remains sober, patient, and chaste;
else to some self-contented fool, feeding himself on folly, reeking of
health, in a perpetual state of absorption with his own smile; or to the
soft and happy race of loungers, the only folk really happy in Paris,
which unfolds for them hour by hour its moving poetry.

Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to
whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts,
and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also have
a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy their
physiognomy, there are to be found in the feminine world little happy
colonies, who live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their beauty;
but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets, they lie
hid like rare plants who only unfold their petals at certain hours, and
constitute veritable exotic exceptions. However, Paris is essentially
the country of contrasts. If true sentiments are rare there, there also
are to be found, as elsewhere, noble friendships and unlimited devotion.
On this battlefield of interests and passions, just as in the midst
of those marching societies where egoism triumphs, where every one
is obliged to defend himself, and which we call _armies_, it seems as
though sentiments liked to be complete when they showed themselves,
and are sublime by juxtaposition. So it is with faces. In Paris one
sometimes sees in the aristocracy, set like stars, the ravishing faces
of young people, the fruit of quite exceptional manners and education.
To the youthful beauty of the English stock they unite the firmness
of Southern traits. The fire of their eyes, a delicious bloom on their
lips, the lustrous black of their soft locks, a white complexion, a
distinguished caste of features, render them the flowers of the human
race, magnificent to behold against the mass of other faces, worn, old,
wrinkled, and grimacing. So women, too, admire such young people with
that eager pleasure which men take in watching a pretty girl, elegant,
gracious, and embellished with all the virgin