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 virginal charms with which our
imagination pleases to adorn the perfect woman. If this hurried glance
at the population of Paris has enabled us to conceive the rarity of a
Raphaelesque face, and the passionate admiration which such an one
must inspire at the first sight, the prime interest of our history
will have been justified. _Quod erat demonstrandum_--if one may be
permitted to apply scholastic formulae to the science of manners.