Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections for their daydreams, and put their trust in him.
But also remember: if you have any genuine feelings, hide them like treasure; never let anyone so much as suspect them, or you're lost. Instead of being the executioner, you'll be the victim. And if you ever fall in love, keep that absolutely secret! Never breathe a word until you're completely sure of the person to whom you open your heart. And to protect that love, even before you feel it, learn to despise the world.
One day, about the middle of July 1838, one of the carriages, lately introduced to Paris cabstands, and known as Milords, was driving down the Rue de l'Universite, conveying a stout man of middle height in the uniform of a captain of the National Guard.
All genuinely noble women prefer truth to falsehood. As the Russians with their Czar, they are unwilling to see their idol degraded; they want to be proud of the domination they accept.
Coffee falls into the stomach... ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink...
When she lives at his palace, the maiden niece of a bishop can pass for a respectable woman because, if she has a love affair, she is obliged to hoodwink her uncle.