Excerpt from The Women of the Salons: And Other French Portraits But one may well recall the lost mistresses of a lost art. For if they were too often, alas! Corrupt, they were. No more than any other human being, wholly corrupt. When one thinks of them, one must needs think too of a tact and kindliness most womanly and most rare, of hearts not a little generous, of ideals not always base, and of a wit, tenderness, and under standing that must have made social life a witch's charm for care. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.