In spite of any such desire, if she had it, her celebrity increased daily, partly through the influence of her salon, partly from her own wit, the correctness of her judgments, and the solid worth of her acquirements.  She became an authority; her sayings were quoted; she could no longer lay aside at will the functions with which Parisian society invested her.  She came to be an acknowledged exception.  The world bowed before the genius and position of this strange woman; it recognized and sanctioned her independence; women admired her mind, men her beauty.  Her conduct was regulated by all social conventions.  Her friendships seemed purely platonic.  There was, moreover, nothing of the female author about her.  Mademoiselle des Touches is charming as a woman of the world,—­languid when she pleases, indolent, coquettish, concerned about her toilet, pleased with the airy nothings so seductive to women and to poets.  She understands very well that after Madame de Stael there is no place in this century for a Sappho, and that Ninon could not exist in Paris without grands seigneurs and a voluptuous court.  She is the Ninon of the intellect; she adores Art and artists; she goes from the poet to the musician, from the sculptor to the prose-writer.  Her heart is noble, endowed with a generosity that makes her a dupe; so filled is she with pity for sorrow,—­filled also with contempt for the prosperous.  She has lived since 1830, the centre of a choice circle, surrounded by tried friends who love her tenderly and esteem each other.  Far from the noisy fuss of Madame de Stael, far from political strifes, she jokes about Camille Maupin, that junior of George Sand (whom she calls her brother Cain), whose recent fame has now eclipsed her own.  Mademoiselle des Touches admires her fortunate rival with angelic composure, feeling no jealousy and no secret vexation.

Until the period when this history begins, she had led as happy a life as a woman strong enough to protect herself can be supposed to live.  From 1817 to 1834 she had come some five or six times to Les Touches.  Her first stay was after her first disillusion in 1818.  The house was uninhabitable, and she sent her man of business to Guerande and took a lodging for herself in the village.  At that time she had no suspicion of her coming fame; she was sad, she saw no one; she wanted, as it were, to contemplate herself after her great disaster.  She wrote to Paris to have the furniture necessary for a residence at Les Touches sent down to her.  It came by a vessel to Nantes, thence by small boats to Croisic, from which little place it was transported, not without difficulty, over the sands to Les Touches.  Workmen came down from Paris, and before long she occupied Les Touches, which pleased her immensely.  She wanted to meditate over the events of her life, like a cloistered nun.