Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/185

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ity, while M. Hervieu, the author of that dramatic and brilliant thesis on Feminism, La Loi de l'Homme, went with the just and liberal minority. It needed nothing more to give him over as a meal to the omnivorous editor of the Revue des deux Mondes, whose virtuous indignation against M. Hervieu's generous cry for justice to women knew no bounds.

In the present divided state of France, with anti-Semitism raging and disaffection rife in all quarters, even a pacific academical reception approaches the verbal war waged in the arena of politics conducted with leisure and urbanity. The ceremonial is imposing and of a supreme dulness. If you have a centre seat, the wise thing to do is to go early and amuse yourself by watching the arrivals; or manage to arrive at the last moment, and you will have the best seat of all, in the very middle of the hall, literally at the feet of the Immortals. If you know all Paris, you will enjoy yourself, for you will see and be seen of all Paris, and the dresses are usually worth looking at. After that you have the mild excitement of watching the Immortals enter, to your surprise not in academical raiment, but in ordinary coats, wearing the air of ordinary men. Only the godfathers of the newly elected, the perpetual secretary, the chancellor, always the latest member, and the gentleman deputed to receive the new Immortal wear the sword and palm-em-