After the body comes the temper, tastes, qualities, and defects of the mind. Here lies the lasting interest of the Portraits. It is valuable to know from first hand, through its own confidences, that this aristocratic society, from which the King exacted the complete sacrifice of its independence, hated nothing more than restraint, and did not hesitate to say so. Men and women, speaking for themselves, return constantly to this point, and always in the same terms: "I hate restraint. Restraint is insupportable to me." "I have an aversion for all that is called restraint." "I suffer oppression impatiently and I passionately love liberty." From the point of view of absolute monarchy and the discipline which it wished to impose upon the Court, the French nobility had very bad habits. This nobility professed love of the chivalric virtues, and hatred of anything resembling baseness or disloyalty. In this, it was sincere, only we must admit that opinions are constantly changing even in relation to morals, and that to-day, we might have difficulty in agreeing with a gentleman of 1660 as to what is loyal or base and what is not. Honour commanded the gentleman to avenge offences against himself without too closely examining into the methods of so doing. Custom authorised him to be unjust and to act with bad faith towards the lowly, common, and feeble, in particular when money was owed. Honesty was a bourgeois virtue. Mademoiselle considered it unworthy that people of quality should abuse their authority to "ruin miserable creditors," but she was an exception. The obligations of "honour" were extending to all conditions. Vatel was praised for having killed himself because the fish did not rise. "It was said," wrote Mme. de Sevigne, "that this sort of honour was a strength." It was not the same with another sentiment which filled the plays of Corneille and which is constantly referred to in all the writings of the time. General consent reserved for people of quality the privilege of having ideas of "Glory and of the 'Beautiful' or the True," which led, according to Huet's definition, to the desire for grand things. The desire for "true glory," which is carefully distinguished from what he called the "halo of glory," was the aristocratic sentiment "par excellence." Even among the authors of the _Portraits_, every one was not considered to possess the high capacity for strongly feeling this longing. In spite of the prevailing licentiousness of the Court, there still remained in this brilliant society many pure women. At the same time, virtue was not particularly honoured. It was a matter of personal taste, the nobility only attaching a secondary and conventional importance to its practice. The women "pure," or those who were supposed so to be, received praise from friendly pens. The others were not looked at askance, except by the Jansenists and other sombre spirits.