Boutrimés, or “_ventes d’amour_,” though somewhat antiquated, contributed a share to the entertainment. A man gave a lady, or vice versa, the name of some flower, and a response had to be made in verse of as epigrammatic or complimentary a turn as possible. As aids to improvisation, manuals of polite rhymes were published. Such was happiness! Conversation in its various forms was the port to which the barque of life made under full sail, trimmed with all the safeguards, manœuvred with all the dexterities which we have described! And the difficulties were compensated by the satisfaction derived from bringing souls into communion one with another, from closely uniting them, welding them in one enthusiasm of affection. Such a result is beyond the attainment of writing. Genuine exquisites like Inghirami thought writing was overdone, and if they employed the pen it was from necessity, or at most to preserve for posterity the conversations, the tales, the sonnets that pleased them; when a work involving time and labour was asked of them, they wrapped themselves in an air of austere solemnity, like people going to a funeral. All these brilliant talkers lived quiet lives out of the public eye, seldom shifting their quarters, with none of that moral trepidation in which the railway and the telegraph keep us: they were light-hearted but not shallow, with something of oriental insouciance, never forgetting that man has but one life on this nether world, squandering their wealth of wit in lavish profusion, with no attempt to economise it in order to sell specimens to an innominate mob. They enjoyed to the full the exquisite pleasure of letting their ideas float off at the mercy of chance; their thoughts took flight and were seen no more, it is true; they burst like bubbles in the air; but there remained the wherewithal to shape others like them. And here was the great sphere of women. Their mission was to cause this happiness to blossom, to tend it, nurture it, turn it to fitting use—to make these bubbles a source of good. This duty like every other had stern laws. It was not enough to be a “queen” by election, or even by birthright, to fancy that the goal was attained.