Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/80

 rarely is, to justify her privileges and pretensions.

Here, far off from the roar of reaction and the rumble of revolt, such women dwell amidst the dim splendours of an impoverished house, unfamiliar to the frequenters of routs and races; whose names never appear in the society columns of the Figaro; who are chiefly known to the poor and the priests of their neighbourhood; and they it is who preserve some charm for the Faubourg, who help us to regard it with some indulgence and sympathy in its futile discontent. For what can be the benefit to itself or to France of this fine attitude of disdain? Every part of a nation should go with the times, and the Faubourg would have served its own cause as well as its country's in abandoning its belated ambitions, and making the best of its existing circumstances. It feeds its pride on its absurd exclusiveness; and who is the better for this? It is largely due to this insane vanity, that Paris has become the centre of rowdy cosmopolitanism, the pleasure-ground of the entire world, for it is the titled malcontents who attract the class they are pleased, with signal ingratitude, to call, contemptuously, rastas, instead of looking after the affairs of their country. Since they will not earn their right to live, they must be amused, and amusement is the costliest thing in the world. Not having enough money for this pro