Quite recently Madame Aubernon died, and Paris lost a literary _salon_, modelled, at a long distance, on that of Madame Geoffrin. Madame Aubernon was a rich _bourgeoise_, with no pretensions on the score of age, good looks, or dress. Her only ambition was to form a menagerie of celebrities. She gave them every evening dinners by no means as good as those of Madame Geoffrin, and checked, controlled, made them march to her liking. She, too, professed mistrust of pretty women, whom she invited only to lunches and teas and such entertainments, because she feared that their pretty frocks, their arms and shoulders, would divert the attention of her great men from their duty to her and her _salon_. She kept a little bell beside her, and only allowed the great men to talk in turn. “Now, M. Renan,” and Renan poured forth to order. “If you please, M. Dumas,” and behold M. Dumas acquitting himself with docility and force. The famous story of the _petits pois_ is told of every distinguished guest of Madame Aubernon. Sometimes you hear it with Dumas’s name, or Renan’s, or Pailleron’s. It does not matter, but the incident remains a delightful illustration of the inconveniences of eating your dinner on the understanding that you are to pay for it in wit. The great man opened his lips out of turn, when the hostess stormily rang the bell, and ordered him to shut them again. Somebody else was speaking with permission. When he ceased, Madame Aubernon turned graciously to her tame lion, and said: “Now you may speak. What was it you wanted to say?” “Oh, nothing, madame. I only wanted to ask for another helping of peas.” Musical celebrities are not so easily trained. When, after dining at some Parisian countess’s, Chopin was asked to play, he quietly retorted: _Madame, j’ai si peu mangé_. But if the great men of letters had been such bears as Chopin there would never have been the _salon_, and the story of Parisian life would be the poorer. And, after all, it is an excellent discipline. Men acquire the art of listening as well as that of talking, and it is a virtue of national importance to teach people not to be dull. For if you are dull you have no possible place in a salon. Your hostess has no desire to crowd her rooms with inanimate or bored figure-heads. You come on a distinct treaty, the conditions of which are accepted by your appearance,—to amuse and be amused. If you speak, either you must have something to say, or you must say whatever you wish to utter well.