34- (1-) Pery, "The Tarts," 1870, Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 35- (r.) Victor Morland, "These Little Women," Le Monde Comique, 1878-79. — He has a very respectable air, the young man with you . . . Is he the son of a good family ... a - What do you think of the latest fashion, Fany? viscount? - Oh! my dear, I find it excellent "Affairs" are - Much better than that! he's a lingerie clerk from going much better now. Plaisir-des-Dames/ -Ah! — Yes . . . and think about it - he has on him his week's savings. - Off you go, you lucky dog!. . . Thanks to society journals which discuss clothes, relationships, lovers, parties and the fitting up of prostitutes, to plays in the theater and to novels, many of which have sup- ported, with an incontestable talent, the rehabilitation of the courtesan, there has been a pronounced evolution in morality; the unhealthy curiosity which pushed honest women towards courtesans at the beginning of this evolution (but which did not prevent them from keeping their distance) has gradually been succeeded by another sentiment. Jealous of the prostitutes who are highhandedly carrying off their husbands, brothers or fiances, they have set about imitating them, copying them. The salons are transformed; the co- codette has made her appearance, to the applause of the blase young people and the soft old men who find in her the offhandedness, the language, even the odor of the fashion- able cocotte.20 Surely Alexandre Dumas fils had this very issue in mind in 1890 when he wrote: "La Dame aux Camelias . . . could not be written today. . . . Courtesans and society women share design- ers . . . Not only do they wear the same clothing, but they use the same language."21 It was the view of a naturalist insider that respectable people condemned the high-class prostitute only out of deep-seated envy and desire: Oh, matrons, if you had the youth of these prostitutes, and if you, young ladies, had the same elegance; if you, upright bourgeois, could obtain their favors without completely ruining yourself, and if you, colorless young people, dared to have the courage of your 62 convictions, no one would cry out against prostitutes!22