Manners elevated to a high art

Spectator, The, Jan 21, 2006 by Moorehead, Caroline

More confrontational, conspiratorial and outspoken than ever before, the conversation nonetheless remained elegant, lively and courteous. It was this savoir-vivre, this extreme control and self-awareness, Taine would later say, that enabled the nobles to go to the scaffold with all the dignity, ease and apparent serenity that they had perfected over decades of exquisite conversation.