At the present moment the laboring classes are the fashionable object of compassion; they are being murdered—­it is said—­by the manufacturing capitalist; but the Government is a hundred times harder than the meanest tradesman, it carries its economy in the article of salaries to absolute folly.  If you work harder, the merchant will pay you more in proportion; but what does the State do for its crowd of obscure and devoted toilers?

In a married woman it is an inexcusable crime when she wanders from the path of honor; still, there are degrees even in such a case.  Some women, far from being depraved, conceal their fall and remain to all appearances quite respectable, like those two just referred to, while others add to their fault the disgrace of speculation.  Thus Madame Marneffe is, as it were, the type of those ambitious married courtesans who from the first accept depravity with all its consequences, and determine to make a fortune while taking their pleasure, perfectly unscrupulous as to the means.  But almost always a woman like Madame Marneffe has a husband who is her confederate and accomplice.  These Machiavellis in petticoats are the most dangerous of the sisterhood; of every evil class of Parisian woman, they are the worst.

A mere courtesan—­a Josepha, a Malaga, a Madame Schontz, a Jenny Cadine—­carries in her frank dishonor a warning signal as conspicuous as the red lamp of a house of ill-fame or the flaring lights of a gambling hell.  A man knows that they light him to his ruin.

But mealy-mouthed propriety, the semblance of virtue, the hypocritical ways of a married woman who never allows anything to be seen but the vulgar needs of the household, and affects to refuse every kind of extravagance, leads to silent ruin, dumb disaster, which is all the more startling because, though condoned, it remains unaccounted for.  It is the ignoble bill of daily expenses and not gay dissipation that devours the largest fortune.  The father of a family ruins himself ingloriously, and the great consolation of gratified vanity is wanting in his misery.

This little sermon will go like a javelin to the heart of many a home.  Madame Marneffes are to be seen in every sphere of social life, even at Court; for Valerie is a melancholy fact, modeled from the life in the smallest details.  And, alas! the portrait will not cure any man of the folly of loving these sweetly-smiling angels, with pensive looks and candid faces, whose heart is a cash-box.

About three years after Hortense’s marriage, in 1841, Baron Hulot d’Ervy was supposed to have sown his wild oats, to have “put up his horses,” to quote the expression used by Louis XV.’s head surgeon, and yet Madame Marneffe was costing him twice as much as Josepha had ever cost him.  Still, Valerie, though always nicely dressed, affected the simplicity of a subordinate official’s wife; she kept her luxury for her dressing-gowns, her home wear.  She thus sacrificed her Parisian vanity to her dear Hector.  At the theatre, however, she always appeared in a pretty bonnet and a dress of extreme elegance; and the Baron took her in a carriage to a private box.