The true secret of her literary
metamorphosis and pseudonym has never been fully understood. Some
delicate minds have thought it lay in a feminine desire to escape fame
and remain obscure, while offering a man's name and work to criticism.
In spite of any such desire, if she had it, her celebrity increased
daily, partly through the influence of her salon, partly from her own
wit, the correctness of her judgments, and the solid worth of her
acquirements. She became an authority; her sayings were quoted; she
could no longer lay aside at will the functions with which Parisian
society invested her. She came to be an acknowledged exception. The
world bowed before the genius and position of this strange woman; it
recognized and sanctioned her independence; women admired her mind,
men her beauty. Her conduct was regulated by all social conventions.
Her friendships seemed purely platonic. There was, moreover, nothing
of the female author about her. Mademoiselle des Touches is charming
as a woman of the world,--languid when she pleases, indolent,
coquettish, concerned about her toilet, pleased with the airy nothings
so seductive to women and to poets.
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