As of her great proto-type, it may be said of her that “in this young lady there was nothing real” (or si peu giie rien) except vanity. She could take the colour chamseleon fashion of all the fashionable facts and fancies; she could simulate the fashionable sentiment; she could be artistic, passionate, and so forth by turns.

– George Saintsbury: ‘The Later Nineteenth Century’, 1907