The reader will observe in these carefully chosen words how deliberately all suggestion of impurity is excluded, and how the writer dwells upon intellectual companionship alone. He may understand this still better by reference to a special case. [Sidenote: Story of Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet.] [Sidenote: Parisian Opinion on that _liaison_.] [Sidenote: Respectful Tone of the Press.] About the year 1833 there was an actress at the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin, named Juliette Drouet, who performed in two of Victor Hugo’s plays, _Lucrèce Borgia_ and _Marie Tudor_. The poet was pleased with her performance, and thought well of her intelligence. In this way he was attracted to herself, and she became his mistress, and lived either with him, or very near him, till she died many years afterwards. She had a residence close to his own at Guernsey, which Victor Hugo arranged and decorated. When he returned to Paris she returned with him and continued to be his very near neighbour. It was the fashion in Paris to think only of the intellectual side of this _liaison_, and to speak of Madame Drouet with the utmost respect as the poet’s wise and discreet friend, a kind of living Muse for him. The lawful wife herself, who knew all, spoke without bitterness of her rival. “These gentlemen,” she said one day to her cousin, meaning her husband and son, “have arranged a little _fête_ at Madame Drouet’s, and they are expecting you. I insist on your going, it will please my husband.” When Madame Drouet died, the notices in the newspapers were most respectful to her, and sympathetic with the old poet who had lost “the faithful friend and wise and gentle adviser of so many years.” [Sidenote: Protection by the Use of Pure Language.] It will be seen from these extracts that illicit unions may under certain favourable circumstances (especially that of intellectual or artistic companionship) come to be conventionally protected, as marriage itself is, by the use of the purest possible language. There have been cases in London more or less resembling that of Victor Hugo, which it would be considered an offence against good taste to speak about in the plain terms of old-fashioned morality. [Sidenote: André Theuriet on Parisian and Provincial Opinion.] M. André Theuriet, in his excellent novel _Amour d’Automne_, says that adulterous _liaisons_ are conventionally tolerated in Paris, but judged very severely by the stricter provincial opinion. Those who feel disposed to tolerate them, speak of them in words so carefully selected that they may be used before virgins and children. There was “an affectionate friendship” between the gentleman and lady, or “an old attachment.” Fidelity in these cases gives them an air of positive virtue:-- “Le temps, vieillard divin, honore et blanchit tout!” [Sidenote: Toleration in Italy and Germany.] [Sidenote: Lewes and Liszt.] [Sidenote: Liszt and the Princess of Wittgenstein.]