Note 40 — Chapter IX

And, unfortunately, Paris, which had applauded the glorious mise-en-scène of the First Empire, which had even looked on approvingly at some of the pomp and state of Louis XVIII. and Charles X., jeered at Louis-Philippe and his court with its ridiculous gatherings of tailors, drapers, and bootmakers, "ces gardes nationaux d'un pays où il n'y a plus rien de national à garder," and their pretentious spouses "qui," according to the Duchesse de la Trémoïlle, "ont plus de chemises que nos aïeules avaient des robes."[40] She and the Princesse Bagration were the only female representatives of the Faubourg St. Germain who attended these gatherings; for the Countess Le Hon, of whom I may have occasion to speak again, and who was the only other woman at these receptions that could lay claim to any distinction, was by no means an aristocrat. And be it remembered that in those days ridicule had still the power to kill.