There are unfortunately many women who stagnate in these dismal swamps; they are dolls with 'narrow and Parisian ideas' or else self righteous hypocrites; Stendhal experiences 'a mortal disgust for decent women and the hypocrisy that is indispensable to them'; they bring to their frivolous occupations the same seriousness that represses their husbands; stupid through education, envious, vain, talkative, mean through idleness, cold, emotionless, pretentious, harmful, they populate Paris and the provinces; they can be seen swarming about behind the noble figure of a Mme de nal or a Mme de Chasteller.