FRANCE: Remembrance of Things Past

In Paris last week a septuagenarian beauty sat among Europe's social ruins and dreamed of the evil old days when life had been gay.

Cléo de Mérode is a part of Europe's past. It was a time when the snowy shirtfronts of gentlemen and the polished shoulders of ladies gleamed under gaslight, when young bloods drank champagne from the slippers of reigning beauties and hauled their carriages in triumph through the streets. In England, nice people never mentioned sex, or a lady's legs; on the Continent, they mentioned very little else, but with...

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