“Il n’y a pas à Londres comme à Paris des bureaux de femmes de bel esprit. Les auteurs anglais ne consultent pas les femmes; ils ne mendient pas leurs suffrages. Les affaires publiques intéressent le beau sexe anglais, mais il ne s’ingère pas de décider entre les intérêts de l’opposition et de la cour. Les femmes dans le monde, ne parlent ni de guerre, ni de politique, pratiquent leur religion et ne discutent point des dogmes. En général les femmes anglaises sont douces, modestes, et vertueuses.”[71] But there were notable society leaders, such as the ladies who founded Almack’s Club, some of whom, like Lady Molyneux, were beauties who set the fashions. Almack’s, which was opened in 1765, was a club for both sexes, on the model of the men’s club at White’s. Ladies nominated and elected the men, and the men chose the ladies. The founders were Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynel, Miss Pelham, Miss Lloyd, and Lady Molyneux. Better known to after generations are the names of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, the Duchess of Rutland, Lady Mary Chudleigh, the sisters Gunning. Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, whose most intimate friend was the Duchess of Portland, collected the wits and brilliant talkers, and made Montagu House a rallying-point for all that was most attractive in society. The Countess of Suffolk was at one time the centre round which court gossip revolved. Lady Caroline Petersham kept up the pace with her frolics and jaunts. There was the more strictly political set, who were perpetually discussing the action of Ministers, and the probable effects on themselves and their friends. The ladies in this set, impelled largely by personal motives, were as keen about political moves as any party wire-puller. “Our ladies are grown such vehement politicians that no other topic is admissible,” writes Walpole in 1783, the year of the memorable Westminster election. He complains that “politics have engrossed all conversation and stifled other events, if any have happened. Indeed, our ladies who used to contribute to enliven correspondence are become politicians, and, as Lady Townley says, ‘squeeze a little too much lemon into conversation.’” There was a good deal of acrimony imported into the atmosphere of political circles, partly because of the strong personal element pervading all politics. The weakness of eighteenth-century society was its narrowness. It cared nothing, comparatively speaking, for large general questions. The literary set discussed books and authors, but society in general did not care very much about literature. A new poem or a new romance were matters of interest because new; it was the correct thing to show acquaintance with the latest productions in verse or prose. Politics absorbed a great many in the fashionable world, but chiefly on the ground of personal interest. Society lived in a kind of mental stays.