In France, social distinctions are less insusceptible of permutation than elsewhere. Everything is possible in a land where a tanner may hobnob with a Czar, be embraced and addressed by that august personage as “friend.” The nations of Europe may object to this state of things, but the nations of Europe must put up with it. Amongst these same nations France cannot be left out of the reckoning. Her capital is always felt to be the best morsel of foreign travel. It is she who gives “tone,” for I do not speak of anything so obvious as the unquestioned prestige of her fashions. A day may come when this prestige shall have passed elsewhere, but even when that day comes Paris will continue for long years to subsist upon her ancient renown. Even now there are signs of revolt against her sovereignty. For in my own town, Dublin, contempt for her fashions is openly expressed, it being alleged here that the women of Dublin dress with far greater taste than their sisters of Paris. Those who are inclined to make light of these pretensions should go to Dublin in the Horse Show week, where I am assured that the dresses of the girls and women of Dublin leave Paris nowhere. So the good people of Dublin say, for they have a fine conceit over there, and profess to hold Europe in light esteem. But in spite of this it is not improbable that Paris will continue to maintain its superiority. Under republican rule, woman has no official position, is in all matters of state a mere cipher. And so it is not possible for the President’s wife to start a fashion, or for any Minister’s wife to guide the vagaries of taste. This in itself suffices to explain to us the fact that a large majority of women are anti-republican. They feel that their sex is insulted by a Government which takes no recognition of their charm and influence, presumes to govern without the assistance of their presence, without any loophole for their unauthorised supremacy. There is no chance for a Pompadour under a Republic, and whatever other abuses may exist to-day, ladies of light morals cannot hope to attain heraldic glory and hereditary wealth by the “primrose path of dalliance” with royal Lotharios. And so social distinctions are now in France more complex and less stringent than under the _ancien régime_. Complexity lies in the variety of claims not known in former days, when the division between the classes was sharp and infrangible. In the world of toque and robe there are men who count themselves the superiors of the crusaders; in the army there are generals of plebeian origin who think themselves the first of Frenchmen; there are fashionable doctors and surgeons, painters, authors, politicians, men of science, and merchant princes who regard themselves almost as the equals of the crowned heads of Europe.