More fortunate in their indigence than the daughters of petty tradesmen, they overleap the limits of restraint, while their charms are in full lustre; and sometimes their happiness arises from being born in poverty. In marrying an artisan of their own class, they see nothing but distress and servitude, which are by no means compatible with their spirit of independence. Vanity becomes their guide, and is as bad a guide as distress; for it prompts them to add the resources of their youth and person to those of their needle. This double temptation is too strong for their weak virtue. They therefore seek a friend to console them on Sundays for the _ennui_ of the remainder of the week, which must needs seem long, when they are sitting close at work from morning to night. In general, they are more faithful than any of the other classes of the frail part of the sex, and may be supported at little expense, and without scandal. It would require almost the powers of the inquisition to ascertain whether _grisettes_ have increased or diminished since the revolution; but their number is, and always has been, immense in Paris. An object highly deserving of the attention of the French legislators would be to find a remedy for this evil. A mortal blow should, no doubt, be struck at the luxury of the toilet; as the rage for dress has, I am convinced, undermined the virtue of as many women as the vile stratagems of all the Lotharios in being. Leaving these matters to some modern Lycurgus, I shall end my letter. But, in my eager haste to close it, I must not omit a class, which has increased in a proportion equal to the decrease of kept women. As they have no precise designation in France, I shall take the liberty of applying to them, that of DEMIREPS. Without having the shameless effrontery of vice, these ladies have not the austere rigour of virtue. Seeing that professed courtesans insnared the most promising youths, and snatched them from other women, this description of females sprang up, in a manner, to dispute with them, under the rose, the advantages which the others derived from their traffic. If they have not the same boldness in their carriage, their looks bespeak almost as much complaisance. They declaim loudly against women of all the classes before-mentioned, for the best possible reason; because these are their more dangerous rivals. It is certain that a virtuous woman cannot hold the breach of chastity too much in abhorrence, but every Lucretia ought to have "a tear for pity," especially towards the fallen part of her sex. Nothing can be more disgusting than to hear women, who are known to have transgressed, forget their own frailties, and rail against the more unguarded, and, consequently, more artless part of womankind, without mercy or justice.