For the ladies, witness the attire, for instance, of that Madame de Tencin, the wonder of the wits of Paris.  A full blue costume, with pannier more than five yards in circumference, under a skirt of silver gauze, trimmed with golden gauze and pink crape, and a train lying six yards upon the floor, showing silver embroideries with white roses.  The sleeves are half-draped, as is the skirt, and each caught up with diamonds, showing folds lying above and below the silk underneath.  Madame wears a necklace of rubies and of diamonds, and above the pannier a belt of diamonds and rubies.  Her hair is dressed, following the mental habit of madame, in the Greek style, and abundantly trimmed with roses and gems and bits of silver gauze.  There is a little crown upon the top of madame’s coiffure.  Her bodice, cut sufficiently low, is seen to be of light silken weave.  From her hair depends a veil of light gauze covered with gold spangles, and it is secured upon the left side by a hand’s grasp of pink and white feathers, surmounted by a magnificent heron plume of long and silken whiteness.  The gloves of madame are white silk, and so also, as she is not reluctant to advise, are her stockings, picked out with pink and silver clocks.  Her shoes, made by the celebrated cordonnier, Raveneau, show heels three inches in height.  As madame enters she casts aside the camlet coat which has covered her costume.  She sweeps back the veil, endangering its confining clasp of plumes.  Madame makes a deliberate and open inspection of her face in her little looking-glass to discover whether her mouches are well placed.  She carefully arranges the patch upon the middle of her cheek.  She would be “gallant” to-night, would lay aside things spirituelle.  She twirls carelessly her fan, a creation of ivory and mother of pearl, elaborately carved, tipped with gold and silver and set with precious stones.

Close at the elbow of Madame de Tencin steps a figure of different type, a woman not accustomed to please by brilliance of mind or vivacity of speech, but by sheer femininity of face and form.  Tall, slender, yet with figure divinely proportioned, this beautiful girl, Haidee, or Mademoiselle Aisse, reputed to be of Turkish or Circassian birth, and possessed of a history as strange as her own personality is attractive, would seem certainly as pure as angel of the skies.  Not so would say the gossips of Paris, who whisper that mademoiselle is not happy from her chevalier—­who speak of a certain visit to England, and a little child born across seas and not acknowledged by its parent.  Aisse, the devout, the beautiful, is no better than others of her sex in this gay city.  True, she has abandoned all artificial aids to the complexion and appears distinct among her flattering rivals, the clear olive of her skin showing in strange contrast to the heightened colors of her sisters.  Yet Aisse, the toast of Europe and the text of poets, proves herself not behind the others in the loose gaiety of this occasion.