For her, the sight of these women was an education; whereas
a bourgeois would merely have ridiculed their ways or made them absurd
by clumsy imitation. A well-born, well-educated, and right-minded
young woman like Modeste fell naturally into connection with these
people, and saw at once the differences that separate the aristocratic
world from the bourgeois world, the provinces from the faubourg
Saint-Germain; she caught the almost imperceptible shadings; in short,
she perceived the grace of the "grande dame" without doubting that she
could herself acquire it. She noticed also that her father and La
Briere appeared infinitely better in this Olympus than Canalis. The
great poet, abdicating his real and incontestable power, that of the
mind, became nothing more than a courtier seeking a ministry,
intriguing for an order, and forced to please the whole galaxy. Ernest
de La Briere, without ambitions, was able to be himself; while
Melchior became, to use a vulgar expression, a mere toady, and courted
the Prince de Loudon, the Duc de Rhetore, the Vicomte de Serizy, or
the Duc de Maufrigneuse, like a man not free to assert himself, as did
Colonel Mignon, who was justly proud of his campaigns, and of the
confidence of the Emperor Napoleon.
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