“What is called the aristocratic type,” said Georges Frémont, “is a pure conception of the brain. There is no more reality in it than in the classic type of the Bacchante or the Muse. I have often wondered how this aristocratic type of womanhood arose, how it managed to root itself in the popular conception. It takes its origin, I think, from several elements of real life. Among these I should point to the actresses in tragedy and comedy, both those of the old Gymnase and of the Théâtre-Français, as well as of the Boulevard du Crime and the Porte-Saint-Martin. For a whole century these actresses have been presenting to our spectacle-loving people numberless studies of princesses and great ladies. Besides these, one must include the models from whom painters create queens and duchesses for their genre, or historical pictures. Nor must one overlook the more recent and less far-reaching, yet still powerful, influence of the mannequins, or lay-figures, of the great dressmakers, those beautiful girls with tall figures who show off a dress so superbly. Now these actresses, these models, these shop-girls, are all women of the lower class. From this I deduce the fact that the aristocratic type proceeds entirely from plebeian elegance. Hence there is nothing surprising in the fact that Madame de Gromance, _née_ Chapon, should be found to belong to this type. She is graceful, and what is a rare thing in our towns, with their sharp paving-stones and dirty footpaths—she walks well. But I rather fancy she falls a little short of perfection as regards the hips. That’s a serious defect!” Lifting his nose from the thirty-eighth volume of _l’Histoire générale des Voyages_, M. Bergeret looked with admiring awe at this red-bearded Parisian who could thus pass judgment on Madame de Gromance’s delicious beauty and worshipful shape in the cold and measured accents of an inquisitor. “Now I know your tastes,” said M. de Terremondre, “I will introduce you to my aunt Courtrai. She is heavily built and can only sit down in a certain family arm-chair, which, for the past three hundred years, has been in the habit of receiving all the old ladies of Courtrai-Maillan within its capaciously wide and complacent embrace. As for her face, it suits well with the rest of her, and I hope you will like it. My aunt Courtrai is as red as a tomato, with fair moustaches that wave negligently in their beauty. Ah! my aunt Courtrai’s type has no connection with your actresses, models, and dressmakers’ dummies.” “I feel myself,” said M. Frémont, “already much enamoured of your worthy aunt.” “The ancient nobility,” said M. Mazure, “used to live the life of our large farmers of to-day, and, of course, they could not avoid resembling those whose lives they led.” “It is a well-proved fact,” said Dr. Fornerol, “that the human race is degenerating.”