At Lyons, which on the contrary was a modern town, squire Sala, chancing to be at his window one fine spring morning, perceived in the street three ladies to whom he was related, going on pilgrimage to St. Irenaeus. To dash after them and make them promise to call in on their way back was the affair of a moment; and then he was a happy man, sure of a pleasant day. We are no longer, you perceive, at Poitiers. The ladies return; they dine gaily with their cousin, and pass into the library; and then, during a desultory conversation, one of the fair guests mechanically opens a Bible at the book of Kings. Nothing more is needed. What a charming subject! The lady avows that she loves to lie back in a cosy chair and read the history of the kings of France; everyone joins in the conversation and cites some notable fact about royalty; and thus the procession defiles past—Alexander, Agis, Brennus, Caesar, the Merovingians, the classic heroes (Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon), divers kings of France, Louis surnamed the Fat, Philip the August, the noble St. Louis, all the princes of the 15th century; finally Sala promises to relate a story of Francis I. Unhappily it is long past the hour for separating, for tearing themselves from this intoxicating pastime; and, to tell the truth, when they got home these ladies found that their husbands had put the lights out. If this was bondage the ladies took it in very good part, and the men left nothing undone to soften it for them. We have all known men expert in the manipulation of feminine conversations, and deriving from them a large measure of influence; for instance (to speak only of the dead), Monsignor Dupanloup,[259] or in a different kind M. Mérimée, that waif from the 16th century, who combined with extraordinary scepticism an incurable impressibility, and, while free in mind and heart, was always leaning on a woman! The men of the 16th century became charmers. A political exile from Milan, fresh from a milieu of women—the physician Marliano—acquired an unprecedented influence in the Low Countries by the mere attractiveness of his conversation; people vied with each other in praising its suavity, its “heavenly ambrosia,” its “honey,” its “sweetness.” Men moulded by the hands of Italian ladies could be distinguished among a thousand; they could talk about anything and everything. Many writers of eminent ability would have gained much by being less serious. No one could help succumbing to this charm; and in truth it is easy to believe that the platonists sought happiness from conversation, futile as it was reputed to be, since they were constantly saying: “I was happy, we are all happy.” Cardan himself recalls with enthusiasm the time when he was supposed to be studying medicine at Venice: “I was happy.”[260] Ever the same word! People cultivated their happiness.