In the previous chapter we examined the curious economy of the “cosmopolite,” who seems to compensate for the increasing loss of the “sanctity” of his relationship to his “home,” to any sense of originary belonging, by a tendency to reify others into nothing but sheer embodiments of a totalized cultural practice. “Occasional Paris” and Henry's letters to William about their sister Alice explore this dynamic in terms of cultural prejudice: living in a space designated as “foreign,” all faults, failings and annoyances are read as emblematic of that particular culture, rather than of the human condition. But what I would like to explore in this chapter is the possibility that the cosmopolite's reification can move not only in the direction of prejudice, but also in what might seem the opposite: that of mystified adoration. For as Lambert Strether, protagonist of The Ambassadors, becomes increasingly uncertain of the values of “Woollett” which it is his duty to represent, as his European experiences end, as we shall see, by rendering the very concept of “home” largely inoperative, at the same time he increasingly mystifies an authenticity of “Frenchness” against which his own life, experience, and values must be measured. And this mystification is one which the reader is very much encouraged to share, for reading The Ambassadors, it is easy to forget that Marie de Vionnet—embodiment of French feminine wiles and touchstone for Lambert Strether of the authenticity of his French experience—is not entirely French at all.