Swann, who was to get to know them later on, that intermediate class, inferior to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, since it “ran after” the denizens of that quarter, but superior to everything that was not of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, possessing this peculiarity that, while already detached from the world of the merely rich, it was riches still that it represented, but riches that had been canalised, serving a purpose, swayed by an idea that were artistic, malleable gold, chased with a poetic design, taught to smile; perhaps that class⁠—in the same form, at least, and with the same charm⁠—exists no longer. In any event, the women who were its members would not satisfy today what was the primary condition on which they reigned, since with advancing age they have lost⁠—almost all of them⁠—their beauty. Whereas it was (just as much as from the pinnacle of her noble fortune) from the glorious zenith of her ripe and still so fragrant summer that Mme.