Rank and wealth disputed the honor of being his customers.

The haughtiest dames did not shrink from entrusting to him secrets of form and figure, which they even hid from their husbands.

They endured without shrinking the touch of his coarse hands as he measured them.

He was the rage, and his showrooms were a species of neutral ground, where women of all circles of society met and examined each other.

The Duchess of -- - did not shrink from being in the same room with the celebrated woman for whom the Baron de -- - had blown out the few brains he possessed.