Paris is no less adored by the vacant-minded, to whom neither art nor pleasure nor study appeal. Her caprices in fashion are received by the wives and daughters of the universe as laws, and obeyed with an unwavering faith, a mute obedience that few religions have commanded. Women who yawn through Italy and the East have, when one meets them in the French capital, the intense manner, the air of separation from things mundane, that is observable in pilgrims approaching the shrine of their deity. Mohammedans at Mecca must have some such look. In Paris women find themselves in the presence of those high priests whom they have long worshipped from a distance. It is useless to mention other subjects to the devotee, for they will not fix her attention. Her thoughts are with her heart, and that is far away.
When visiting other cities one feels that they are like honest married women, living quiet family lives, surrounded by their children. The French Aspasia, on the contrary, has never been true to any vow, but has, at the dictate of her passions, changed from royal and imperial to republican lovers, and back again, ruled by no laws but her caprices, and discarding each favorite in turn with insults when she has wearied of him.
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