There is another side, less known, of aristocratic Paris. This is the quiet, exclusive, genuinely religious side, that of old-fashioned, rigid noblewomen, who live apart in their dull, old houses of the Faubourg, given up to prayer and good works. There is a charming distinction about them, a musty, conventual odour, as you enter the halls of their faded hotels. They preside over _ouvroirs_, where ladies of their like meet to make church articles and decorate altar pieces. Sometimes they carry piety and good-will to the poor to excess, for I know of one, a baroness, who neglected her children to make perfume and soap of her own invention, which she sold for the benefit of the poor. The instinct of trade so developed that she ended by opening a shop, on which she duly bestowed a saint’s name; and here, if you are willing to pay exorbitant prices, you may find wherewithal to wash and scent yourself with the labours of aristocratic hands, and tell yourself you are doing so for the good of mankind. Not that I would laugh at those ladies, who are the salt, the redemption of their class. I once lodged in the dismantled hotel of such a countess, and was edified by the stately, chill dignity of her austere existence. Her private rooms were furnished with a touching simplicity. Even in winter there was not a carpet anywhere, no sign of luxury or comfort; but in her private chapel, where Mass was celebrated every day, the vestments and ornaments were both beautiful and precious. She herself had nothing whatever to do with the frisky countesses of French fiction. She was in every sense of the word a great lady,—handsome, with aquiline features, and with hair worn high off a noble forehead, reserved, possibly too haughty in bearing and expression for her reputation of piety, but essentially one of the elect of this earth, the kind of woman that an aristocrat should be, and too rarely is, to justify her privileges and pretensions.