“The provincial women I have met in Paris,” said Lousteau, “were, in fact, rapid in their proceedings—­”

“My word, they are strange,” said the lady, giving a significant shrug of her shoulders.

“They are like the playgoers who book for the second performance, feeling sure that the piece will not fail,” replied the journalist.

“And what is the cause of all these woes?” asked Bianchon.

“Paris is the monster that brings us grief,” replied the Superior Woman.  “The evil is seven leagues round, and devastates the whole land.  Provincial life is not self-existent.  It is only when a nation is divided into fifty minor states that each can have a physiognomy of its own, and then a woman reflects the glory of the sphere where she reigns.  This social phenomenon, I am told, may be seen in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany; but in France, as in every country where there is but one capital, a dead level of manners must necessarily result from centralization.”

“Then you would say that manners could only recover their individuality and native distinction by the formation of a federation of French states into one empire?” said Lousteau.

“That is hardly to be wished, for France would have to conquer too many countries,” said Bianchon.

“This misfortune is unknown in England,” exclaimed Dinah.  “London does not exert such tyranny as that by which Paris oppresses France—­for which, indeed, French ingenuity will at last find a remedy; however, it has a worse disease in its vile hypocrisy, which is a far greater evil!”

“The English aristocracy,” said Lousteau, hastening to put a word in, for he foresaw a Byronic paragraph, “has the advantage over ours of assimilating every form of superiority; it lives in the midst of magnificent parks; it is in London for no more than two months.  It lives in the country, flourishing there, and making it flourish.”

“Yes,” said Madame de la Baudraye, “London is the capital of trade and speculation and the centre of government.  The aristocracy hold a ‘mote’ there for sixty days only; it gives and takes the passwords of the day, looks in on the legislative cookery, reviews the girls to marry, the carriages to be sold, exchanges greetings, and is away again; and is so far from amusing, that it cannot bear itself for more than the few days known as ‘the season.’”

“Hence,” said Lousteau, hoping to stop this nimble tongue by an epigram, “in Perfidious Albion, as the Constitutionnel has it, you may happen to meet a charming woman in any part of the kingdom.”

“But charming English women!” replied Madame de la Baudraye with a smile.  “Here is my mother, I will introduce you,” said she, seeing Madame Piedefer coming towards them.

Having introduced the two Paris lions to the ambitious skeleton that called itself woman under the name of Madame Piedefer—­a tall, lean personage, with a red face, teeth that were doubtfully genuine, and hair that was undoubtedly dyed, Dinah left her visitors to themselves for a few minutes.