Magazines: Si Elle Lit Elle Lit Elle

"My, you look chic, Jeanne," said Mme. Georges Pompidou, wife of France's Prime Minister, to the milkmaid at the Pompidous' country place. Jeanne was indeed a fetching sight: gold sandals, gay striped frock in the latest mode, gleaming pearl fingertips. "Merci, madame," replied Jeanne. Then she explained how a farmer's daughter so far from Paris could keep up so surely with style changes: "I read Elle."

Mme. Pompidou also reads Elle. So does Mme. Charles de Gaulle. So do 800,000 other French women every week. The numbers justify a popular saying: "Si...