This eBook was produced by Dagny,
and David Widger,
"He, of wide-blooming youth's fair flower possest,
Owns the vain thoughts—the heart that cannot rest!"
SIMONIDES, /in Tit. Hum/.
"Il y eut certainement quelque chose de singulier dans mes
sentimens pour cette charmante femme."*—ROUSSEAU.
* There certainly was something singular in my sentiments for thischarming woman.
IT was a brilliant ball at the Palazzo of the Austrian embassy atNaples: and a crowd of those loungers, whether young or old, who attachthemselves to the reigning beauty, was gathered round Madame deVentadour. Generally speaking, there is more caprice than taste in theelection of a beauty to the Italian throne. Nothing disappoints astranger more than to see for the first time the woman to whom the worldhas given the golden apple. Yet he usually falls at last into thepopular idolatry, and passes with inconceivable rapidity from indignantscepticism into superstitious veneration. In fact, a thousand thingsbeside mere symmetry of feature go to make up the Cytherea of the hour.—tact in society—the charm of manner—nameless and piquantbrilliancy. Where the world find the Graces they proclaim the Venus.Few persons attain pre-eminent celebrity for anything, without someadventitious and extraneous circumstances which have nothing to do withthe thing celebrated. Some qualities or some circumstances throw amysterious or personal charm about them. "Is Mr. So-and-So really sucha genius?" "Is Mrs. Such-a-One really such a beauty?" you askincredulously. "Oh, yes," is the answer. "Do you know all about him orher? Such a thing is said, or such a thing has happened." The idol isinteresting in itself, and therefore its leading and popular attributeis worshipped.
Now Madame de Ventadour was at this time the beauty of Naples: andthough fifty women in the room were handsomer, no one would have daredto say so. Even the women confessed her pre-eminence—for she was themost perfect dresser that even France could exhibit. And to nopretensions do ladies ever concede with so little demur, as those whichdepend upon that feminine art which all study, and in which few excel.Women never allow beauty in a face that has an odd-looking bonnet aboveit, nor will they readily allow any one to be ugly whose caps areunexceptionable. Madame de Ventadour had also the magic that resultsfrom intuitive high breeding, polished by habit to the utmost. Shelooked and moved the /grande dame/, as if Nature had been employed byRank to make her so. She was descended from one of the most illustrioushouses of France; had married at sixteen a man of equal birth, but old,dull, and pompous—a caricature rather than a portrait of that greatFrench /noblesse/, now almost if not wholly extinct. But her virtue waswithout a blemish—some said from pride, some said from coldness. Herwit was keen and court-like—lively, yet subdued; for her French highbreeding was very different from the lethargic and taciturnimperturbability of the English. All silent people can seemconventionally elegant. A groom married a rich lady; he dreaded theridicule of the guests whom his new rank assembled at his table—anOxford clergyman gave him this piece of advice, "Wear a black coat andhold your tongue!" The groom took the hint, and is always consideredone of the most gentlemanlike fellows in the county. Conversation isthe touchstone of the true delicacy and subtle grace which make theideal of the moral mannerism of a court. And there sat Madame deVentadour, a little apart from the