Yet the Parisian _grisette_, even when she is far from being a model of virtue, if she has not been vitiated by the _bal public_ is a very well-behaved and gracious little creature. Her standard of life is not high, but such as it is, it is attained with surprising dignity, and it is thanks to the lover who leads her to the public ball, that she becomes acquainted with the ignoble, the profane, and the outrageous. Left to herself, she would ask for nothing better than a quiet and refined interior, a little money to spend capriciously, as many pretty, inoffensive fineries to wear as are necessary to make her always pleasant to be looked at, an occasional cheerful outing, with a picnic at Robinson or in the woods of Vincennes, or safe water-excursions at Bougival, with the certainty of replacing the present lover on the same discreet and advantageous lines. She takes no heed of the morrow, and it is this improvidence and the public ball that inevitably accomplish her ruin when she does not find—and it must be admitted she more frequently than not does find—an honest workman willing to overlook her past and to start married life with her. Made for the stability of home, neat and competent, she soon settles down, and proves herself a good housewife. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER X THE PARISIAN LECTURE AND SALON In no city in the world is the public lecturer so popular as in Paris. The _Conférence_ is almost a national institution, like the _salon_ and the _foyer_. I will frankly confess that I find the average Parisian lecturer overrated, and the whole thing sadly overdone. In the winter and spring there are a great deal too many lectures, on too many subjects, but that is the way the Parisian, above all, Parisian woman, likes to take a dose of culture. When the season opens in January, you will generally find that your friends have subscribed somewhere or other for a course of lectures—six or twelve. Sometimes they take place in the lecture-hall of the Rue Caumartin, or in a lecture-hall in the Rue Boissy d’Anglas, or at the Société Géographique on the Boulevard St. Germain. Then there are the lectures of the Sorbonne, or the Collége de France, where the salaried professors of the State lecture, and a host of stray lectures on every subject under the sun, in various private dwellings or hired rooms. In spite of the competition between the well-known French lecturers, professors, men of letters and of science, foreigners are given courteous hearing, and if they have anything novel and interesting to say, are heartily thanked as well as generously paid for saying it. This I know, for I have had the honour of giving several lectures in Paris on modern English literature, and had reason to congratulate myself on my sympathetic and appreciative audience of intelligent and cultivated Frenchwomen. They dress so well, these pleasant-looking Frenchwomen, and listen with such speaking, sparkling visages, that no wonder there