Her female friends were all handsome; no old woman had ever appeared within her precincts.

She was not jealous; in fact, she would have thought jealousy an admission of inferiority.

She had known Coralie and La Torpille in their lifetimes, and now knew Tullia, Euphrasie, Aquilina, Madame du Val-Noble, Mariette,--those women who pass through Paris like gossamer through the atmosphere, without our knowing where they go nor whence they came; to-day queens, to-morrow slaves.

She also knew the actresses, her rivals, and all the prima-donnas; in short, that whole exceptional feminine society, so kindly, so graceful in its easy "sans-souci," which absorbs into its own Bohemian life all who allow themselves to be caught in the frantic whirl of its gay spirits, its eager abandonment, and its contemptuous indifference to the future.
Though this Bohemian life displayed itself in her house in tumultuous disorder, amid the laughter of artists of every description, the queen of the revels had ten fingers on which she knew better how to count than any of her guests.

In that house secret saturnalias of literature and art, politics and finance were carried on; there, desire reigned a sovereign; there, caprice and fancy were as sacred as honor and virtue to a bourgeoise; thither came Blondet, Finot, Etienne Lousteau, Vernou the feuilletonist, Couture, Bixiou, Rastignac in his earlier days, Claude Vignon the critic, Nucingen the banker, du Tillet, Conti the composer,--in short, that whole devil-may-care legion of selfish materialists of all kinds; friends of Florine and of the singers, actresses and "danseuses" collected about her.