The principle of decorum being the study of external appearances, it is not likely to be much observed by an excited and turbulent democracy. Still, a kind of artistic instinct desires decorum, and re-establishes it even after the most violent commotions. It is interesting to see how regularly and inevitably it has been re-established in France, so soon as a new form of government has been settled. M. Mollard, the Introducer of Ambassadors, was the Grand Master of Decorum for the Élysée, and had as much to occupy him as a Lord Chamberlain. [Sidenote: Decorum in Literature.] [Sidenote: _Manon Lescaut._] [Sidenote: Modern French Literature.] Decorum in literature and the fine arts is quite distinct from morality. A book may be irreproachably decorous, yet very immoral at the same time, and this is a combination that many readers seem to approve of. I could hardly mention a better instance of it than the famous little novel _Manon Lescaut_, by the Abbé Prévost, a French classic made still more famous in recent times by the opera which Massenet founded upon it. That is one of the most immoral books ever written; the situations are doubly and triply immoral; there is no sense of conduct in the leading personages, who are vicious and unprincipled in all their dealings; yet, at the same time, the author is much more decorous (according to modern ideas) than either Swift or Sterne. Critics who condemn modern novels as being “filthy,” because the sexual arrangements in them are lawless, are inexact in the application of their censure. In the French literature of the present day the combination of decorum with immorality is very common; and decorum is so far from acting as an effective restraint upon immorality that under certain circumstances it positively favours it. Immoral writers know how to conciliate the slaves of decorum, and win not only their tolerance, but even their protection. [Sidenote: English Decency.] [Sidenote: Divorce Reports in France and England.] The English deserve great respect for the general decency of their modern literature, and certainly they get this respect even from the French themselves. But there are some curious anomalies in connection with this subject. English decorum permits the publication of details in the reports of divorce cases which French decorum absolutely forbids. The French tolerate certain matters provided that they be fictitious, the English on condition that they be real. The French admit disgusting art, the English disgusting nature. The French novelist may be more attractive, but the English newspaper reporter is a thousand times more impressive, having all the force of reality on his side. The fictitious adulteress is but a phantom in comparison with the living beauty who is seen and heard in a court of justice; and what fall of an imaginary hero ever impressed us like that of the gifted and ambitious politician who barred his own path to the premiership of England?