This view, which was more or less correct, kept them from visiting at La Baudraye.  Dinah, attainted and convicted of pedantry, because she spoke grammatically, was nicknamed the Sappho of Saint-Satur.  At last everybody made insolent game of the great qualities of the woman who had thus roused the enmity of the ladies of Sancerre.  And they ended by denying a superiority—­after all, merely comparative!—­which emphasized their ignorance, and did not forgive it.  Where the whole population is hunch-backed, a straight shape is the monstrosity; Dinah was regarded as monstrous and dangerous, and she found herself in a desert.

Astonished at seeing the women of the neighborhood only at long intervals, and for visits of a few minutes, Dinah asked Monsieur de Clagny the reason of this state of things.

“You are too superior a woman to be liked by other women,” said the lawyer.

Monsieur Gravier, when questioned by the forlorn fair, only, after much entreaty, replied: 

“Well, lady fair, you are not satisfied to be merely charming.  You are clever and well educated, you know every book that comes out, you love poetry, you are a musician, and you talk delightfully.  Women cannot forgive so much superiority.”

Men said to Monsieur de la Baudraye: 

“You who have such a Superior Woman for a wife are very fortunate——­” And at last he himself would say: 

“I who have a Superior Woman for a wife, am very fortunate,” etc.

Madame Piedefer, flattered through her daughter, also allowed herself to say such things—­“My daughter, who is a very Superior Woman, was writing yesterday to Madame de Fontaine such and such a thing.”

Those who know the world—­France, Paris—­know how true it is that many celebrities are thus created.

Two years later, by the end of the year 1825, Dinah de la Baudraye was accused of not choosing to have any visitors but men; then it was said that she did not care for women—­and that was a crime.  Not a thing could she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism and misrepresentation.  After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de la Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with her on her isolation: 

“I would rather have my bowl empty than with anything in it!”

This speech produced a terrible effect on Sancerre, and was cruelly retorted on the Sappho of Saint-Satur when, seeing her childless after five years of married life, little de la Baudraye became a byword for laughter.  To understand this provincial witticism, readers may be reminded of the Bailli de Ferrette—­some, no doubt, having known him —­of whom it was said that he was the bravest man in Europe for daring to walk on his legs, and who was accused of putting lead in his shoes to save himself from being blown away.  Monsieur de la Baudraye, a sallow and almost diaphanous creature, would have been engaged by the Bailli de Ferrette as first gentleman-in-waiting if that diplomatist had been the Grand Duke of Baden instead of being merely his envoy.