By the title of the poem is meant respectability according to the standard of the beau monde.
The speaker is a woman, as is indicated in the third stanza. The monologue is addressed to her lover.
Stanza 1 shows that they have disregarded the conventionalities of the beau monde. Had they conformed to them, many precious months and years would have passed before they found out the world and what it fears. One cannot well judge of any state of things while in it. It must be looked at from the outside.
Stanza 2. The idea is repeated in a more special form in the first four verses of the stanza; and in the last four their own non-conventional and Bohemian life is indicated.
Stanza 3, vv. 1-4. The speaker knows that this beau monde does not proscribe love, provided it be in accordance with the proprieties which IT has determined upon and established. v. 5. “The world’s good word!” a contemptuous exclamation: what’s the world’s good word worth? “the Institute!” (the reference is, of course, to the French Institute), the Institute! with all its authoritative, dictatorial learnedness! v.6. Guizot and Montalembert were both members of the Institute, and being thus in the same boat, Guizot conventionally receives Montalembert. vv. 7 and 8. These two unconventional Bohemian lovers, strolling together at night, at their own sweet will, see down the court along which they are strolling, three lampions flare, which indicate some big place or other where the “respectables” do congregate; and the woman says to her companion, with a humorous sarcasm, “Put forward your best foot!” that is, we must be very correct passing along here in this brilliant light.
By the two lovers are evidently meant George Sand (the speaker) and Jules Sandeau, with whom she lived in Paris, after she left her husband, M. Dudevant. They took just such unconventional night-strolls together, in the streets of Paris.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg