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256 wit, that the liaisons of Madame Tallien were for her genuine enjoyment, to which she brought all the ardour and passion of her temperament. As for Madame Beauharnais, it was the general belief that her relations, even with the men whose physical advantages she best appreciated, were not so generous as those of Madame Tallien. Even although the physical basis appeared to be with Madame Beauharnais the origin of her liaison, determined by an involuntary impulse, her libertinism sprang merely from the mind, while the heart played no part in the pleasures of her body; in a word, never loving except from motives of interest, the lewd Creole never lost sight of business, although those possessing her might suppose she was conquered by them and had freely given herself. She had sacrificed all to sordid interests, and, as was said of a disreputable woman who had preceded her in this style of turning matters to account, 'she would have drunk gold in the skull of her lover.' When compared to Madame Tallien, it did not seem possible that Madame Beauharnais could enter into competition with her in the matter of physical charms. Madame Tallien was then in the height of her freshness; Madame Beauharnais was beginning to show the results of precocious decrepitude."