Third Part

RELATING TO CIVIL WAR.

"Lovely as the seraphs of Klopstock,
Terrible as the devils of Milton." --DIDEROT.

MEDITATION XXIII.

OF MANIFESTOES.

The Preliminary precepts, by which science has been enabled at thispoint to put weapons into the hand of a husband, are few in number; itis not of so much importance to know whether he will be vanquished, asto examine whether he can offer any resistance in the conflict.

Meanwhile, we will set up here certain beacons to light up the arenawhere a husband is soon to find himself, in alliance with religion andlaw, engaged single-handed in a contest with his wife, who issupported by her native craft and the whole usages of society as herallies.

LXXXII.

Anything may be expected and anything may be supposed of a woman who is in love.

LXXXIII.

The actions of a woman who intends to deceive her husband are almost always the result of study, but never dictated by reason.

LXXXIV.

The greater number of women advance like the fleas, by erratic leapsand bounds, They owe their escape to the height or depth of theirfirst ideas, and any interruption of their plans rather favors theirexecution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easyfor the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he willend by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre.

LXXXV.

A husband should never allow himself to address a single disparaging remark to his wife, in presence of a third party.

LXXXVI.

The moment a wife decides to break her marriage vow she reckons herhusband as everything or nothing. All defensive operations must startfrom this proposition.

LXXXVII.

The life of a woman is either of the head, of the heart, or ofpassion. When a woman reaches the age to form an estimate of life, herhusband ought to find out whether the primary cause of her intendedinfidelity proceeds from vanity, from sentiment or from temperament.Temperament may be remedied like disease; sentiment is something inwhich the husband may find great opportunities of success; but vanityis incurable. A woman whose life is of the head may be a terriblescourge. She combines the faults of a passionate woman with those ofthe tender-hearted woman, without having their palliations. She isdestitute alike of pity, love, virtue or sex.

LXXXVIII.

A woman whose life is of the head will strive to inspire her husbandwith indifference; the woman whose life is of the heart, with hatred;the passionate woman, with disgust.

LXXXIX.

A husband never loses anything by appearing to believe in the fidelityof his wife, by preserving an air of patience and by keeping silence.Silence especially troubles a woman amazingly.

XC.

To show himself aware of the passion of his wife is the mark of afool; but to affect ignorance of all proves that a man has sense, andthis is in fact the only attitude to take. We are taught, moreover,that everybody in France is sensible.

XCI.

The rock most to be avoided is ridicule.--"At least, let us beaffectionate in public," ought to be the maxim of a marriedestablishment. For both the married couple to lose honor, esteem,consideration, respect and all that is worth living for in society, is to become a nonentity.

These axioms relate to the contest alone. As for the catastrophe,others will be needed for that.

We have called this crisis Civil War for two reasons; never was awar more really intestine and at the same time so polite as this war.But in what point and in what manner does this fatal war break out?You do not believe that your wife will call out regiments and soundthe trumpet, do you? She will, perhaps, have a commanding officer, butthat is all. And this feeble army corps will be sufficient to destroythe peace of your establishment.

"You forbid me to see the people that I like!" is an exordium whichhas served for a manifesto in most homes. This phrase, with all theideas that are concomitant, is oftenest employed by vain andartificial women.

The most usual manifesto is that which is proclaimed in the conjugalbed, the principal theatre of war. This subject will be treated indetail in the Meditation entitled: Of Various Weapons, in theparagraph, Of Modesty in its Connection with Marriage.

Certain women of a lymphatic temperament will pretend to have thespleen and will even feign death, if they can only gain thereby thebenefit of a secret divorce.

But most of them owe their independence to the execution of a plan,whose effect upon the majority of husbands is unfailing and whoseperfidies we will now reveal.

One of the greatest of human errors springs from the belief that ourhonor and our reputation are founded upon our actions, or result fromthe approbation which the general conscience bestows upon on conduct.A man who lives in the world is born to be a slave to public opinion.Now a private man in France has less opportunity of influencing theworld than his wife, although he has ample occasion for ridiculing it.Women possess to a marvelous degree the art of giving color byspecious arguments to the recriminations in which they indulge. Theynever set up any defence, excepting when they are in the wrong, and inthis proceeding they are pre-eminent, knowing how to oppose argumentsby precedents, proofs by assertions, and thus they very often obtainvictory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirablepenetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which sheherself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose ahusband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwardsare terror-stricken at the conflagration.

As a general thing, all women league themselves against a married manwho is accused of tyranny; for a secret tie unites them all, as itunites all priests of the same religion. They hate each other, yetshield each other. You can never gain over more than one of them; andyet this act of seduction would be a triumph for your wife.

You are, therefore, outlawed from the feminine kingdom. You seeironical smiles on every lip, you meet an epigram in every answer.These clever creatures force their daggers and amuse themselves bysculpturing the handle before dealing you a graceful blow.

The treacherous art of reservation, the tricks of silence, the maliceof suppositions, the pretended good nature of an inquiry, all thesearts are employed against you. A man who undertakes to subjugate hiswife is an example too dangerous to escape destruction from them, forwill not his conduct call up against them the satire of every husband?Moreover, all of them will attack you, either by bitter witticisms, orby serious arguments, or by the hackneyed maxims of gallantry. A swarmof celibates will support all their sallies and you will be assailedand persecuted as an original, a tyrant, a bad bed-fellow, aneccentric man, a man not to be trusted.

Your wife will defend you like the bear in the fable of La Fontaine;she will throw paving stones at your head to drive away the flies thatalight on it. She will tell you in the evening all the things thathave been said about you, and will ask an explanation of acts whichyou never committed, and of words which you never said. She professesto have justified you for faults of which you are innocent; she hasboasted of a liberty which she does not possess, in order to clear youof the wrong which you have done in denying that liberty. Thedeafening rattle which your wife shakes will follow you everywherewith its obtrusive din. Your darling will stun you, will torture you,meanwhile arming herself by making you feel only the thorns of marriedlife. She will greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will besullen at home. She will be dull when you are merry, and will make youdetest her merriment when you are moody. Your two faces will present aperpetual contrast.

Very few men have sufficient force of mind not to succumb to thispreliminary comedy, which is always cleverly played, and resembles thehourra raised by the Cossacks, as they advance to battle. Manyhusbands become irritated and fall into irreparable mistakes. Othersabandon their wives. And, indeed, even those of superior intelligencedo not know how to get hold of the enchanted ring, by which to dispelthis feminine phantasmagoria.

Two-thirds of such women are enabled to win their independence by thissingle manoeuvre, which is no more than a review of their forces. Inthis case the war is soon ended.

But a strong man who courageously keeps cool throughout this firstassault will find much amusement in laying bare to his wife, in alight and bantering way, the secret feelings which make her thusbehave, in following her step by step through the labyrinth which shetreads, and telling her in answer to her every remark, that she isfalse to herself, while he preserves throughout a tone of pleasantryand never becomes excited.

Meanwhile war is declared, and if her husband has not been dazzled bythese first fireworks, a woman has yet many other resources forsecuring her triumph; and these it is the purpose of the followingMeditations to discover.

MEDITATION XXIV.

PRINCIPLES OF STRATEGY.

The Archduke Charles published a very fine treatise on military underthe title Principles of Strategy in Relation to the Campaigns of1796. These principles seem somewhat to resemble poetic canonsprepared for poems already published. In these days we are become verymuch more energetic, we invent rules to suit works and works to suitrules. But of what use were ancient principles of military art inpresence of the impetuous genius of Napoleon? If, to-day, however, wereduce to a system the lessons taught by this great captain whose newtactics have destroyed the ancient ones, what future guarantee do wepossess that another Napoleon will not yet be born? Books on militaryart meet, with few exceptions, the fate of ancient works on Chemistryand Physics. Everything is subject to change, either constant orperiodic.

This, in a few words, is the history of our work.

So long as we have been dealing with a woman who is inert or lapped inslumber, nothing has been easier than to weave the meshes with whichwe have bound her; but the moment she wakes up and begins to struggle,all is confusion and complication. If a husband would make an effortto recall the principles of the system which we have just described inorder to involve his wife in the nets which our second part has setfor her, he would resemble Wurmser, Mack and Beaulieu arranging theirhalts and their marches while Napoleon nimbly turns their flank, andmakes use of their own tactics to destroy them.

This is just what your wife will do.

How is it possible to get at the truth when each of you conceals itunder the same lie, each setting the same trap for the other? Andwhose will be the victory when each of you is caught in a similarsnare?

"My dear, I have to go out; I have to pay a visit to Madame So and So.I have ordered the carriage. Would you like to come with me? Come, begood, and go with your wife."

You say to yourself:

"She would be nicely caught if I consented! She asks me only to berefused."

Then you reply to her:

"Just at the moment I have some business with Monsieur Blank, for hehas to give a report in a business matter which deeply concerns usboth, and I must absolutely see him. Then I must go to the Minister ofFinance. So your arrangement will suit us both."

"Very well, dearest, go and dress yourself, while Celine finishesdressing me; but don't keep me waiting."

"I am ready now, love," you cry out, at the end of ten minutes, as youstand shaved and dressed.

But all is changed. A letter has arrived; madame is not well; herdress fits badly; the dressmaker has come; if it is not the dressmakerit is your mother. Ninety-nine out of a hundred husbands will leavethe house satisfied, believing that their wives are well guarded,when, as a matter of fact, the wives have gotten rid of them.

A lawful wife who from her husband cannot escape, who is notdistressed by pecuniary anxiety, and who in order to give employmentto a vacant mind, examines night and day the changing tableaux of eachday's experience, soon discovers the mistake she has made in fallinginto a trap or allowing herself to be surprised by a catastrophe; shewill then endeavor to turn all these weapons against you.

There is a man in society, the sight of whom is strangely annoying toyour wife; she can tolerate neither his tone, his manners nor his wayof regarding things. Everything connected with him is revolting toher; she is persecuted by him, he is odious to her; she hopes that noone will tell him this. It seems almost as if she were attempting tooppose you; for this man is one for whom you have the highest esteem.You like his disposition because he flatters you; and thus your wifepresumes that your esteem for him results from flattered vanity. Whenyou give a ball, an evening party or a concert, there is almost adiscussion on this subject, and madame picks a quarrel with you,because you are compelling her to see people who are not agreeable toher.

"At least, sir, I shall never have to reproach myself with omitting towarn you. That man will yet cause you trouble. You should put someconfidence in women when they pass sentence on the character of a man.And permit me to tell you that this baron, for whom you have such apredilection, is a very dangerous person, and you are doing very wrongto bring him to your house. And this is the way you behave; youabsolutely force me to see one whom I cannot tolerate, and if I askyou to invite Monsieur A-----, you refuse to do so, because you thinkthat I like to have him with me! I admit that he talks well, that heis kind and amiable; but you are more to me than he can ever be."

These rude outlines of feminine tactics, which are emphasized byinsincere gestures, by looks of feigned ingenuousness, by artfulintonations of the voice and even by the snare of cunning silence, arecharacteristic to some degree of their whole conduct.

There are few husbands who in such circumstances as these do not formthe idea of setting a mouse-trap; they welcome as their guests bothMonsieur A----- and the imaginary baron who represents the person whomtheir wives abhor, and they do so in the hope of discovering a loverin the celibate who is apparently beloved.

Oh yes, I have often met in the world young men who were absolutelystarlings in love and complete dupes of a friendship which womenpretended to show them, women who felt themselves obliged to make adiversion and to apply a blister to their husbands as their husbandshad previously done to them! These poor innocents pass their time inrunning errands, in engaging boxes at the theatre, in riding in theBois de Boulogne by the carriages of their pretended mistresses; theyare publicly credited with possessing women whose hands they have noteven kissed. Vanity prevents them from contradicting these flatteringrumors, and like the young priests who celebrate masses without aHost, they enjoy a mere show passion, and are veritablesupernumeraries of love.

Under these circumstances sometimes a husband on returning home asksthe porter: "Has no one been here?"--"M. le Baron came past at twoo'clock to see monsieur; but as he found no one was in but madame hewent away; but Monsieur A----- is with her now."

You reach the drawing-room, you see there a young celibate, sprightly,scented, wearing a fine necktie, in short a perfect dandy. He is a manwho holds you in high esteem; when he comes to your house your wifelistens furtively for his footsteps; at a ball she always dances withhim. If you forbid her to see him, she makes a great outcry and it isnot till many years afterwards [see Meditation on Las Symptoms] thatyou see the innocence of Monsieur A----- and the culpability of thebaron.

We have observed and noted as one of the cleverest manoeuvres, that ofa young woman who, carried away by an irresistible passion, exhibiteda bitter hatred to the man she did not love, but lavished upon herlover secret intimations of her love. The moment that her husband waspersuaded that she loved the Cicisbeo and hated the Patito, shearranged that she and the Patito should be found in a situationwhose compromising character she had calculated in advance, and herhusband and the execrated celibate were thus induced to believe thather love and her aversion were equally insincere. When she had broughther husband into the condition of perplexity, she managed that apassionate letter should fall into his hands. One evening in the midstof the admirable catastrophe which she had thus brought to a climax,madame threw herself at her husband's feet, wet them with her tears,and thus concluded the climax to her own satisfaction.

"I esteem and honor you profoundly," she cried, "for keeping your owncounsel as you have done. I am in love! Is this a sentiment which iseasy for me to repress? But what I can do is to confess the fact toyou; to implore you to protect me from myself, to save me from my ownfolly. Be my master and be a stern master to me; take me away fromthis place, remove me from what has caused all this trouble, consoleme; I will forget him, I desire to do so. I do not wish to betray you.I humbly ask your pardon for the treachery love has suggested to me.Yes, I confess to you that the love which I pretended to have for mycousin was a snare set to deceive you. I love him with the love offriendship and no more.--Oh! forgive me! I can love no one but"--hervoice was choked in passionate sobs--"Oh! let us go away, let us leaveParis!"

She began to weep; her hair was disheveled, her dress in disarray; itwas midnight, and her husband forgave her. From henceforth, the cousinmade his appearance without risk, and the Minotaur devoured one victimmore.

What instructions can we give for contending with such adversaries asthese? Their heads contain all the diplomacy of the congress ofVienna; they have as much power when they are caught as when theyescape. What man has a mind supple enough to lay aside brute force andstrength and follow his wife through such mazes as these?

To make a false plea every moment, in order to elicit the truth, atrue plea in order to unmask falsehood; to charge the battery whenleast expected, and to spike your gun at the very moment of firing it;to scale the mountain with the enemy, in order to descend to the plainagain five minutes later; to accompany the foe in windings as rapid,as obscure as those of a plover on the breezes; to obey when obedienceis necessary, and to oppose when resistance is inertial; to traversethe whole scale of hypotheses as a young artist with one stroke runsfrom the lowest to the highest note of his piano; to divine at lastthe secret purpose on which a woman is bent; to fear her caresses andto seek rather to find out what are the thoughts that suggested themand the pleasure which she derived from them--this is mere child's payfor the man of intellect and for those lucid and searchingimaginations which possess the gift of doing and thinking at the sametime. But there are a vast number of husbands who are terrified at themere idea of putting in practice these principles in their dealingswith a woman.

Such men as these prefer passing their lives in making huge efforts tobecome second-class chess-players, or to pocket adroitly a ball inbilliards.

Some of them will tell you that they are incapable of keeping theirminds on such a constant strain and breaking up the habits of theirlife. In that case the woman triumphs. She recognizes that in mind andenergy she is her husband's superior, although the superiority may bebut temporary; and yet there rises in her a feeling of contempt forthe head of the house.

If many man fail to be masters in their own house this is not fromlack of willingness, but of talent. As for those who are ready toundergo the toils of this terrible duel, it is quite true that theymust needs possess great moral force.

And really, as soon as it is necessary to display all the resources ofthis secret strategy, it is often useless to attempt setting any trapsfor these satanic creatures. Once women arrive at a point when theywillfully deceive, their countenances become as inscrutable asvacancy. Here is an example which came within my own experience.

A very young, very pretty, and very clever coquette of Paris had notyet risen. Seated by her bed was one of her dearest friends. A letterarrived from another, a very impetuous fellow, to whom she had allowedthe right of speaking to her like a master. The letter was in penciland ran as follows:

"I understand that Monsieur C----- is with you at this moment. I amwaiting for him to blow his brains out."

Madame D----- calmly continued the conversation with Monsieur C-----.She asked him to hand her a little writing desk of red leather whichstood on the table, and he brought it to her.

"Thanks, my dear," she said to him; "go on talking, I am listening toyou."

C----- talked away and she replied, all the while writing thefollowing note:

"As soon as you become jealous of C----- you two can blow out eachother's brains at your pleasure. As for you, you may die; but brains--you haven't any brains to blow out."

"My dear friend," she said to C-----, "I beg you will light thiscandle. Good, you are charming. And now be kind enough to leave me andlet me get up, and give this letter to Monsieur d'H-----, who iswaiting at the door."

All this was said with admirable coolness. The tones and intonationsof her voice, the expression of her face showed no emotion. Heraudacity was crowned with complete success. On receiving the answerfrom the hand of Monsieur C-----, Monsieur d'H----- felt his wrathsubside. He was troubled with only one thing and that was how todisguise his inclination to laugh.

The more torch-light one flings into the immense cavern which we arenow trying to illuminate, the more profound it appears. It is abottomless abyss. It appears to us that our task will be accomplishedmore agreeably and more instructively if we show the principles ofstrategy put into practice in the case of a woman, when she hasreached a high degree of vicious accomplishment. An example suggestsmore maxims and reveals the existence of more methods than allpossible theories.

One day at the end of a dinner given to certain intimate friends byPrince Lebrun, the guests, heated by champagne, were discussing theinexhaustible subject of feminine artifice. The recent adventure whichwas credited to the Countess R. D. S. J. D. A-----, apropos of anecklace, was the subject first broached. A highly esteemed artist, agifted friend of the emperor, was vigorously maintaining the opinion,which seemed somewhat unmanly, that it was forbidden to a man toresist successfully the webs woven by a woman.

"It is my happy experience," he said, "that to them nothing issacred."

The ladies protested.

"But I can cite an instance in point."

"It is an exception!"

"Let us hear the story," said a young lady.

"Yes, tell it to us," cried all the guests.

The prudent old gentleman cast his eyes around, and, after havingformed his conclusions as to the age of the ladies, smiled and said:

"Since we are all experienced in life, I consent to relate theadventure."

Dead silence followed, and the narrator read the following from alittle book which he had taken from his pocket:

I was head over ears in love with the Comtesse de -----. I was twentyand I was ingenuous. She deceived me. I was angry; she threw me over.I was ingenuous, I repeat, and I was grieved to lose her. I wastwenty; she forgave me. And as I was twenty, as I was alwaysingenuous, always deceived, but never again thrown over by her, Ibelieved myself to have been the best beloved of lovers, consequentlythe happiest of men. The countess had a friend, Madame de T-----, whoseemed to have some designs on me, but without compromising herdignity; for she was scrupulous and respected the proprieties. One daywhile I was waiting for the countess in her Opera box, I heard my namecalled from a contiguous box. It was Madame de T-----.

"What," she said, "already here? Is this fidelity or merely a want ofsomething to do? Won't you come to me?"

Her voice and her manner had a meaning in them, but I was far frominclined at that moment to indulge in a romance.

"Have you any plans for this evening?" she said to me. "Don't makeany! If I cheer your tedious solitude you ought to be devoted to me.Don't ask any questions, but obey. Call my servants."

I answered with a bow and on being requested to leave the Opera box, Iobeyed.

"Go to this gentleman's house," she said to the lackey. "Say he willnot be home till to-morrow."

She made a sign to him, he went to her, she whispered in his ear, andhe left us. The Opera began. I tried to venture on a few words, butshe silenced me; some one might be listening. The first act ended, thelackey brought back a note, and told her that everything was ready.Then she smiled, asked for my hand, took me off, put me in hercarriage, and I started on my journey quite ignorant of mydestination. Every inquiry I made was answered by a peal of laughter.If I had not been aware that this was a woman of great passion, thatshe had long loved the Marquis de V-----, that she must have known Iwas aware of it, I should have believed myself in good luck; but sheknew the condition of my heart, and the Comtesse de -----. I thereforerejected all presumptuous ideas and bided my time. At the first stop,a change of horses was supplied with the swiftness of lightning and westarted afresh. The matter was becoming serious. I asked with someinsistency, where this joke was to end.

"Where?" she said, laughing. "In the pleasantest place in the world,but can't you guess? I'll give you a thousand chances. Give it up, foryou will never guess. We are going to my husband's house. Do you knowhim?"

"Not in the least."

"So much the better, I thought you didn't. But I hope you will likehim. We have lately become reconciled. Negotiations went on for sixmonths; and we have been writing to one another for a month. I thinkit is very kind of me to go and look him up."

"It certainly is, but what am I going to do there? What good will I bein this reconciliation?"

"Ah, that is my business. You are young, amiable, unconventional; yousuit me and will save me from the tediousness of a tete-a-tete."

"But it seems odd to me, to choose the day or the night of areconciliation to make us acquainted; the awkwardness of the firstinterview, the figure all three of us will cut,--I don't see anythingparticularly pleasant in that."

"I have taken possession of you for my own amusement!" she said withan imperious air, "so please don't preach."

I saw she was decided, so surrendered myself to circumstances. I beganto laugh at my predicament and we became exceedingly merry. We againchanged horses. The mysterious torch of night lit up a sky of extremeclearness and shed around a delightful twilight. We were approachingthe spot where our tete-a-tete must end. She pointed out to me atintervals the beauty of the landscape, the tranquillity of the night,the all-pervading silence of nature. In order to admire these thingsin company as it was natural we should, we turned to the same windowand our faces touched for a moment. In a sudden shock she seized myhand, and by a chance which seemed to me extraordinary, for the stoneover which our carriage had bounded could not have been very large, Ifound Madame de T----- in my arms. I do not know what we were tryingto see; what I am sure of is that the objects before our eyes began inspite of the full moon to grow misty, when suddenly I was releasedfrom her weight, and she sank into the back cushions of the carriage.

"Your object," she said, rousing herself from a deep reverie, "ispossibly to convince me of the imprudence of this proceeding. Judge,therefore, of my embarrassment!"

"My object!" I replied, "what object can I have with regard to you?What a delusion! You look very far ahead; but of course the suddensurprise or turn of chance may excuse anything."

"You have counted, then, upon that chance, it seems to me?"

We had reached our destination, and before we were aware of it, we hadentered the court of the chateau. The whole place was brightly lit up.Everything wore a festal air, excepting the face of its master, who atthe sight of me seemed anything but delighted. He came forward andexpressed in somewhat hesitating terms the tenderness proper to theoccasion of a reconciliation. I understood later on that thisreconciliation was absolutely necessary from family reasons. I waspresented to him and was coldly greeted. He extended his hand to hiswife, and I followed the two, thinking of my part in the past, in thepresent and in the future. I passed through apartments decorated withexquisite taste. The master in this respect had gone beyond all theordinary refinement of luxury, in the hope of reanimating, by theinfluence of voluptuous imagery, a physical nature that was dead. Notknowing what to say, I took refuge in expressions of admiration. Thegoddess of the temple, who was quite ready to do the honors, acceptedmy compliments.

"You have not seen anything," she said. "I must take you to theapartments of my husband."

"Madame, five years ago I caused them to be pulled down."

"Oh! Indeed!" said she.

At the dinner, what must she do but offer the master some fish, onwhich he said to her:

"Madame, I have been living on milk for the last three years."

"Oh! Indeed!" she said again.

Can any one imagine three human beings as astonished as we were tofind ourselves gathered together? The husband looked at me with asupercilious air, and I paid him back with a look of audacity.

Madame de T----- smiled at me and was charming to me; Monsieur deT----- accepted me as a necessary evil. Never in all my life have Itaken part in a dinner which was so odd as that. The dinner ended, Ithought that we would go to bed early--that is, I thought thatMonsieur de T----- would. As we entered the drawing-room:

"I appreciate, madame," said he, "your precaution in bringing thisgentleman with you. You judged rightly that I should be but poorcompany for the evening, and you have done well, for I am going toretire."

Then turning to me, he added in a tone of profound sarcasm:

"You will please to pardon me, and obtain also pardon from madame."

He left us. My reflections? Well, the reflections of a twelvemonthwere then comprised in those of a minute. When we were left alone,Madame de T----- and I, we looked at each other so curiously that, inorder to break through the awkwardness, she proposed that we shouldtake a turn on the terrace while we waited, as she said, until theservants had supped.

It was a superb night. It was scarcely possible to discern surroundingobjects, they seemed to be covered with a veil, that imagination mightbe permitted to take a loftier flight. The gardens, terraced on theside of a mountain, sloped down, platform after platform, to the banksof the Seine, and the eye took in the many windings of the streamcovered with islets green and picturesque. These variations in thelandscape made up a thousand pictures which gave to the spot,naturally charming, a thousand novel features. We walked along themost extensive of these terraces, which was covered with a thickumbrage of trees. She had recovered from the effects of her husband'spersiflage, and as we walked along she gave me her confidence.Confidence begets confidence, and as I told her mine, all she said tome became more intimate and more interesting. Madame de T----- atfirst gave me her arm; but soon this arm became interlaced in mine, Iknow not how, but in some way almost lifted her up and prevented herfrom touching the ground. The position was agreeable, but became atlast fatiguing. We had been walking for a long time and we still hadmuch to say to each other. A bank of turf appeared and she sat downwithout withdrawing her arm. And in this position we began to soundthe praises of mutual confidence, its charms and its delights.

"Ah!" she said to me, "who can enjoy it more than we and with lesscause of fear? I know well the tie that binds you to another, andtherefore have nothing to fear."

Perhaps she wished to be contradicted. But I answered not a word. Wewere then mutually persuaded that it was possible for us to be friendswithout fear of going further.

"But I was afraid, however," I said, "that that sudden jolt in thecarriage and the surprising consequences may have frightened you."

"Oh, I am not so easily alarmed!"

"I fear it has left a little cloud on your mind?"

"What must I do to reassure you?"

"Give me the kiss here which chance--"

"I will gladly do so; for if I do not, your vanity will lead you tothink that I fear you."

I took the kiss.

It is with kisses as with confidences, the first leads to another.They are multiplied, they interrupt conversation, they take its place;they scarce leave time for a sigh to escape. Silence followed. Wecould hear it, for silence may be heard. We rose without a word andbegan to walk again.

"We must go in," said she, "for the air of the river is icy, and it isnot worth while--"

"I think to go in would be more dangerous," I answered.

"Perhaps so! Never mind, we will go in."

"Why, is this out of consideration for me? You wish doubtless to saveme from the impressions which I may receive from such a walk as this--the consequences which may result. Is it for me--for me only--?"

"You are modest," she said smiling, "and you credit me with singularconsideration."

"Do you think so? Well, since you take it in this way, we will go in;I demand it."

A stupid proposition, when made by two people who are forcingthemselves to say something utterly different from what they think.

Then she compelled me to take the path that led back to the chateau. Ido not know, at least I did not then know, whether this course was onewhich she forced upon herself, whether it was the result of a vigorousresolution, or whether she shared my disappointment in seeing anincident which had begun so well thus suddenly brought to a close butby a mutual instinct our steps slackened and we pursued our waygloomily dissatisfied the one with the other and with ourselves. Weknew not the why and the wherefore of what we were doing. Neither ofus had the right to demand or even to ask anything. We had neither ofus any ground for uttering a reproach. O that we had got up a quarrel!But how could I pick one with her? Meanwhile we drew nearer andnearer, thinking how we might evade the duty which we had so awkwardlyimposed upon ourselves. We reached the door, when Madame de T-----said to me:

"I am angry with you! After the confidences I have given you, not togive me a single one! You have not said a word about the countess. Andyet it is so delightful to speak of the one we love! I should havelistened with such interest! It was the very best I could do after Ihad taken you away from her!"

"Cannot I reproach you with the same thing?" I said, interrupting her,"and if instead of making me a witness to this singular reconciliationin which I play so odd a part, you had spoken to me of the marquis--"

"Stop," she said, "little as you know of women, you are aware thattheir confidences must be waited for, not asked. But to return toyourself. Are you very happy with my friend? Ah! I fear thecontrary--"

"Why, madame, should everything that the public amuses itself bysaying claim our belief?"

"You need not dissemble. The countess makes less a mystery of thingsthan you do. Women of her stamp do not keep the secrets of their lovesand of their lovers, especially when you are prompted by discretion toconceal her triumph. I am far from accusing her of coquetry; but aprude has as much vanity as a coquette.--Come, tell me frankly, haveyou not cause of complaint against her?"

"But, madame, the air is really too icy for us to stay here. Would youlike to go in?" said I with a smile.

"Do you find it so?--That is singular. The air is quite warm."

She had taken my arm again, and we continued to walk, although I didnot know the direction which we took. All that she had hinted atconcerning the lover of the countess, concerning my mistress, togetherwith this journey, the incident which took place in the carriage, ourconversation on the grassy bank, the time of night, the moonlight--allmade me feel anxious. I was at the same time carried along by vanity,by desire, and so distracted by thought, that I was too excitedperhaps to take notice of all that I was experiencing. And, while Iwas overwhelmed with these mingled feelings, she continued talking tome of the countess, and my silence confirmed the truth of all that shechose to say about her. Nevertheless, certain passages in her talkrecalled me to myself.

"What an exquisite creature she is!" she was saying. "How graceful! Onher lips the utterances of treachery sound like witticism; an act ofinfidelity seems the prompting of reason, a sacrifice to propriety;while she is never reckless, she is always lovable; she is seldomtender and never sincere; amorous by nature, prudish on principle;sprightly, prudent, dexterous though utterly thoughtless, varied asProteus in her moods, but charming as the Graces in her manner; sheattracts but she eludes. What a number of parts I have seen her play!Entre nous, what a number of dupes hang round her! What fun she hasmade of the baron, what a life she has led the marquis! When she tookyou, it was merely for the purpose of throwing the two rivals off thescent; they were on the point of a rupture; for she had played withthem too long, and they had had time to see through her. But shebrought you on the scene. Their attention was called to you, she ledthem to redouble their pursuit, she was in despair over you, shepitied you, she consoled you-- Ah! how happy is a clever woman when insuch a game as this she professes to stake nothing of her own! Butyet, is this true happiness?"

This last phrase, accompanied by a significant sigh, was amaster-stroke. I felt as if a bandage had fallen from my eyes, withoutseeing who had put it there. My mistress appeared to me the falsest ofwomen, and I believed that I held now the only sensible creature intheworld. Then I sighed without knowing why. She seemed grieved at havinggiven me pain and at having in her excitement drawn a picture, thetruth of which might be open to suspicion, since it was the work of awoman. I do not know how I answered; for without realizing the driftof all I heard, I set out with her on the high road of sentiment, andwe mounted to such lofty heights of feeling that it was impossible toguess what would be the end of our journey. It was fortunate that wealso took the path towards a pavilion which she pointed out to me atthe end of the terrace, a pavilion, the witness of many sweet moments.She described to me the furnishing of it. What a pity that she had notthe key! As she spoke we reached the pavilion and found that it wasopen. The clearness of the moonlight outside did not penetrate, butdarkness has many charms. We trembled as we went in. It was asanctuary. Might it not be the sanctuary of love? We drew near a sofaand sat down, and there we remained a moment listening to ourheart-beats. The last ray of the moon carried away the last scruple.The hand which repelled me felt my heart beat. She struggled to getaway, but fell back overcome with tenderness. We talked togetherthrough that silence in the language of thought. Nothing is morerapturous than these mute conversations. Madame de T----- took refugein my arms, hid her head in my bosom, sighed and then grew calm undermy caresses. She grew melancholy, she was consoled, and she asked oflove all that love had robbed her of. The sound of the river broke thesilence of night with a gentle murmur, which seemed in harmony withthe beating of our hearts. Such was the darkness of the place it wasscarcely possible to discern objects; but through the transparentcrepe of a fair summer's night, the queen of that lovely place seemedto me adorable.

"Oh!" she said to me with an angelic voice, "let us leave thisdangerous spot. Resistance here is beyond our strength."

She drew me away and we left the pavilion with regret.

"Ah! how happy is she!" cried Madame de T-----.

"Whom do you mean?" I asked.

"Did I speak?" said she with a look of alarm.

And then we reached the grassy bank, and stopped there involuntarily."What a distance there is," she said to me, "between this place andthe pavilion!"

"Yes indeed," said I. "But must this bank be always ominous? Is therea regret? Is there--?"

I do not know by what magic it took place; but at this point theconversation changed and became less serious. She ventured even tospeak playfully of the pleasures of love, to eliminate from them allmoral considerations, to reduce them to their simplest elements, andto prove that the favors of lovers were mere pleasure, that there wereno pledges--philosophically speaking--excepting those which were givento the world, when we allowed it to penetrate our secrets and joinedit in the acts of indiscretion.

"How mild is the night," she said, "which we have by chance pickedout! Well, if there are reasons, as I suppose there are, which compelus to part to-morrow, our happiness, ignored as it is by all nature,will not leave us any ties to dissolve. There will, perhaps, be someregrets, the pleasant memory of which will give us reparation; andthen there will be a mutual understanding, without all the delays, thefuss and the tyranny of legal proceedings. We are such machines--and Iblush to avow it--that in place of all the shrinkings that tormentedme before this scene took place, I was half inclined to embrace theboldness of these principles, and I felt already disposed to indulgein the love of liberty.

"This beautiful night," she continued, "this lovely scenery at thismoment have taken on fresh charms. O let us never forget thispavilion! The chateau," she added smilingly, "contains a still morecharming place, but I dare not show you anything; you are like achild, who wishes to touch everything and breaks everything that hetouches."

Moved by a sentiment of curiosity I protested that I was a very goodchild. She changed the subject.

"This night," she said, "would be for me without a regret if I werenot vexed with myself for what I said to you about the countess. Notthat I wish to find fault with you. Novelty attracts me. You havefound me amiable, I should like to believe in your good faith. But thedominion of habit takes a long time to break through and I have notlearned the secret of doing this--By the bye, what do you think of myhusband?"

"Well, he is rather cross, but I suppose he could not be otherwise tome."

"Oh, that is true, but his way of life isn't pleasant, and he couldnot see you here with indifference. He might be suspicious even of ourfriendship."

"Oh! he is so already."

"Confess that he has cause. Therefore you must not prolong this visit;he might take it amiss. As soon as any one arrives--" and she addedwith a smile, "some one is going to arrive--you must go. You have tokeep up appearance, you know. Remember his manner when he left usto-night."

I was tempted to interpret this adventure as a trap, but as shenoticed the impression made by her words, she added:

"Oh, he was very much gayer when he was superintending the arrangementof the cabinet I told you about. That was before my marriage. Thispassage leads to my apartment. Alas! it testifies to the cunningartifices to which Monsieur de T----- has resorted in protecting hislove for me."

"How pleasant it would be," I said to her, keenly excited by thecuriosity she had roused in me, "to take vengeance in this spot forthe insults which your charms have suffered, and to seek to makerestitution for the pleasures of which you have been robbed."

She doubtless thought this remark in good taste, but she said: "Youpromised to be good!"

       *      *      *      *      *      *      *

I threw a veil over the follies which every age will pardon to youth,on the ground of so many balked desires and bitter memories. In themorning, scarcely raising her liquid eyes, Madame de T-----, fairerthan ever, said to me:

"Now will you ever love the countess as much as you do me?"

I was about to answer when her maid, her confidante, appeared saying:

"You must go. It is broad daylight, eleven o'clock, and the chateau isalready awake."

All had vanished like a dream! I found myself wandering through thecorridors before I had recovered my senses. How could I regain myapartment, not knowing where it was? Any mistake might bring about anexposure. I resolved on a morning walk. The coolness of the fresh airgradually tranquilized my imagination and brought me back to the worldof reality; and now instead of a world of enchantment I saw myself inmy soul, and my thoughts were no longer disturbed but followed eachother in connected order; in fact, I breathed once more. I was, aboveall things, anxious to learn what I was to her so lately left--I whoknew that she had been desperately in love with the Marquis de V-----.Could she have broken with him? Had she taken me to be his successor,or only to punish him? What a night! What an adventure! Yes, and whata delightful woman! While I floated on the waves of these thoughts, Iheard a sound near at hand. I raised my eyes, I rubbed them, I couldnot believe my senses. Can you guess who it was? The Marquis deV-----!

"You did not expect to see me so early, did you?" he said. "How has itall gone off?"

"Did you know that I was here?" I asked in utter amazement.

"Oh, yes, I received word just as you left Paris. Have you played yourpart well? Did not the husband think your visit ridiculous? Was he putout? When are you going to take leave? You had better go, I have madeevery provision for you. I have brought you a good carriage. It is atyour service. This is the way I requite you, my dear friend. You mayrely on me in the future, for a man is grateful for such services asyours."

These last words gave me the key to the whole mystery, and I saw how Istood.

"But why should you have come so soon?" I asked him; "it would havebeen more prudent to have waited a few days."

"I foresaw that; and it is only chance that has brought me here. I amsupposed to be on my way back from a neighboring country house. Buthas not Madame de T----- taken you into her secret? I am surprised ather want of confidence, after all you have done for us."

"My dear friend," I replied, "she doubtless had her reasons. Perhaps Idid not play my part very well."

"Has everything been very pleasant? Tell me the particulars; come,tell me."

"Now wait a moment. I did not know that this was to be a comedy; andalthough Madame de T----- gave me a part in the play--"

"It wasn't a very nice one."

"Do not worry yourself; there are no bad parts for good actors."

"I understand, you acquitted yourself well."

"Admirably."

"And Madame de T-----?"

"Is adorable."

"To think of being able to win such a woman!" said he, stopping shortin our walk, and looking triumphantly at me. "Oh, what pains I havetaken with her! And I have at last brought her to a point where she isperhaps the only woman in Paris on whose fidelity a man may infalliblycount!"

"You have succeeded--?"

"Yes; in that lies my special talent. Her inconstancy was merefrivolity, unrestrained imagination. It was necessary to change thatdisposition of hers, but you have no idea of her attachment to me. Butreally, is she not charming?"

"I quite agree with you."

"And yet entre nous I recognize one fault in her. Nature in givingher everything, has denied her that flame divine which puts the crownon all other endowments; while she rouses in others the ardor ofpassion, she feels none herself, she is a thing of marble."

"I am compelled to believe you, for I have had no opportunity ofjudging, but do you think that you know that woman as well as if youwere her husband? It is possible to be deceived. If I had not dinedyesterday with the veritable--I should take you--"

"By the way, has he been good?"

"Oh, I was received like a dog!"

"I understand. Let us go in, let us look for Madame de T-----. Shemust be up by this time."

"But should we not out of decency begin with the husband?" I said tohim.

"You are right. Let us go to your room, I wish to put on a littlepowder. But tell me, did he really take you for her lover?"

"You may judge by the way he receives me; but let us go at once to hisapartment."

I wished to avoid having to lead him to an apartment whose whereaboutsI did not know; but by chance we found it. The door was open and thereI saw my valet de chambre asleep on an armchair. A candle was goingout on a table beside him. He drowsily offered a night robe to themarquis. I was on pins and needles; but the marquis was in a mood tobe easily deceived, took the man for a mere sleepy-head, and made ajoke of the matter. We passed on to the apartment of Monsieur deT-----. There was no misunderstanding the reception which he accordedme, and the welcome, the compliments which he addressed to themarquis, whom he almost forced to stay. He wished to take him tomadame in order that she might insist on his staying. As for me, Ireceived no such invitation. I was reminded that my health wasdelicate, the country was damp, fever was in the air, and I seemed sodepressed that the chateau would prove too gloomy for me. The marquisoffered me his chaise and I accepted it. The husband seemed delightedand we were all satisfied. But I could not refuse myself the pleasureof seeing Madame de T----- once more. My impatience was wonderful. Myfriend conceived no suspicions from the late sleep of his mistress.

"Isn't this fine?" he said to me as we followed Monsieur de T-----."He couldn't have spoken more kindly if she had dictated his words. Heis a fine fellow. I am not in the least annoyed by thisreconciliation; they will make a good home together, and you willagree with me, that he could not have chosen a wife better able to dothe honors."

"Certainly," I replied.

"However pleasant the adventure has been," he went on with an air ofmystery, "you must be off! I will let Madame de T----- understand thather secret will be well kept."

"On that point, my friend, she perhaps counts more on me than on you;for you see her sleep is not disturbed by the matter."

"Oh! I quite agree that there is no one like you for putting a womanto sleep."

"Yes, and a husband too, and if necessary a lover, my dear friend."

At last Monsieur de T----- was admitted to his wife's apartment, andthere we were all summoned.

"I trembled," said Madame de T----- to me, "for fear you would gobefore I awoke, and I thank you for saving me the annoyance which thatwould have caused me."

"Madame," I said, and she must have perceived the feeling that was inmy tones--"I come to say good-bye."

She looked at me and at the marquis with an air of disquietude; butthe self-satisfied, knowing look of her lover reassured her. Shelaughed in her sleeve with me as if she would console me as well asshe could, without lowering herself in my eyes.

"He has played his part well," the marquis said to her in a low voice,pointing to me, "and my gratitude--"

"Let us drop the subject," interrupted Madame de T-----; "you may besure that I am well aware of all I owe him."

At last Monsieur de T-----, with a sarcastic remark, dismissed me; myfriend threw the dust in his eyes by making fun of me; and I paid backboth of them by expressing my admiration for Madame de T-----, whomade fools of us all without forfeiting her dignity. I took myselfoff; but Madame de T----- followed me, pretending to have a commissionto give me.

"Adieu, monsieur!" she said, "I am indebted to you for the very greatpleasure you have given me; but I have paid you back with a beautifuldream," and she looked at me with an expression of subtle meaning."But adieu, and forever! You have plucked a solitary flower,blossoming in its loveliness, which no man--"

She stopped and her thought evaporated in a sigh; but she checked therising flood of sensibility and smiled significantly.

"The countess loves you," she said. "If I have robbed her of sometransports, I give you back to her less ignorant than before. Adieu!Do not make mischief between my friend and me."

She wrung my hand and left me.

More than once the ladies who had mislaid their fans blushed as theylistened to the old gentleman, whose brilliant elocution won theirindulgence for certain details which we have suppressed, as too eroticfor the present age; nevertheless, we may believe that each ladycomplimented him in private; for some time afterwards he gave to eachof them, as also to the masculine guests, a copy of this charmingstory, twenty-five copies of which were printed by Pierre Didot. It isfrom copy No. 24 that the author has transcribed this tale, hithertounpublished, and, strange to say, attributed to Dorat. It has themerit of yielding important lessons for husbands, while at the sametime it gives the celibates a delightful picture of morals in the lastcentury.

MEDITATION XXV.

OF ALLIES.

Of all the miseries that civil war can bring upon a country thegreatest lies in the appeal which one of the contestants always endsby making to some foreign government.

Unhappily we are compelled to confess that all women make this greatmistake, for the lover is only the first of their soldiers. It may bea member of their family or at least a distant cousin. ThisMeditation, then, is intended to answer the inquiry, what assistancecan each of the different powers which influence human life give toyour wife? or better than that, what artifices will she resort to toarm them against you?

Two beings united by marriage are subject to the laws of religion andsociety; to those of private life, and, from considerations of health,to those of medicine. We will therefore divide this importantMeditation into six paragraphs:

1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE.

2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.

3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.

4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES.

5. OF THE MAID.

6. OF THE DOCTOR.

1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE.

La Bruyere has very wittily said, "It is too much for a husband tohave ranged against him both devotion and gallantry; a woman ought tochoose but one of them for her ally."

The author thinks that La Bruyere is mistaken.

2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.

Up to the age of thirty the face of a woman is a book written in aforeign tongue, which one may still translate in spite of all thefeminisms of the idiom; but on passing her fortieth year a womanbecomes an insoluble riddle; and if any one can see through an oldwoman, it is another old woman.

Some diplomats have attempted on more than one occasion the diabolicaltask of gaining over the dowagers who opposed their machinations; butif they have ever succeeded it was only after making enormousconcessions to them; for diplomats are practiced people and we do notthink that you can employ their recipe in dealing with yourmother-in-law. She will be the first aid-de-camp of her daughter, forif the mother did not take her daughter's side, it would be one ofthose monstrous and unnatural exceptions, which unhappily for husbandsare extremely rare.

When a man is so happy as to possess a mother-in-law who iswell-preserved, he may easily keep her in check for a certain time,although he may not know any young celibate brave enough to assailher. But generally husbands who have the slightest conjugal geniuswill find a way of pitting their own mother against that of theirwife, and in that case they will naturally neutralize each other'spower.

To be able to keep a mother-in-law in the country while he lives inParis, and vice versa, is a piece of good fortune which a husband toorarely meets with.

What of making mischief between the mother and the daughter?--That maybe possible; but in order to accomplish such an enterprise he musthave the metallic heart of Richelieu, who made a son and a motherdeadly enemies to each other. However, the jealousy of a husband whoforbids his wife to pray to male saints and wishes her to address onlyfemale saints, would allow her liberty to see her mother.

Many sons-in-law take an extreme course which settles everything,which consists in living on bad terms with their mothers-in-law. Thisunfriendliness would be very adroit policy, if it did not inevitablyresult in drawing tighter the ties that unite mother and daughter.These are about all the means which you have for resisting maternalinfluence in your home. As for the services which your wife can claimfrom her mother, they are immense; and the assistance which she mayderive from the neutrality of her mother is not less powerful. But onthis point everything passes out of the domain of science, for all isveiled in secrecy. The reinforcements which a mother brings up insupport of a daughter are so varied in nature, they depend so much oncircumstances, that it would be folly to attempt even a nomenclaturefor them. Yet you may write out among the most valuable precepts ofthis conjugal gospel, the following maxims.

A husband should never let his wife visit her mother unattended.

A husband ought to study all the reasons why all the celibates underforty who form her habitual society are so closely united by ties offriendship to his mother-in-law; for, if a daughter rarely falls inlove with the lover of her mother, her mother has always a weak spotfor her daughter's lover.

3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.

Louise de L-----, daughter of an officer killed at Wagram, had beenthe object of Napoleon's special protection. She left Ecouen to marrya commissary general, the Baron de V-----, who is very rich.

Louise was eighteen and the baron forty. She was ordinary in face andher complexion could not be called white, but she had a charmingfigure, good eyes, a small foot, a pretty hand, good taste andabundant intelligence. The baron, worn out by the fatigues of war andstill more by the excesses of a stormy youth, had one of those facesupon which the Republic, the Directory, the Consulate and the Empireseemed to have set their impress.

He became so deeply in love with his wife, that he asked and obtainedfrom the Emperor a post at Paris, in order that he might be enabled towatch over his treasure. He was as jealous as Count Almaviva, stillmore from vanity than from love. The young orphan had married herhusband from necessity, and, flattered by the ascendancy she wieldedover a man much older than herself, waited upon his wishes and hisneeds; but her delicacy was offended from the first days of theirmarriage by the habits and ideas of a man whose manners were tingedwith republican license. He was a predestined.

I do not know exactly how long the baron made his honeymoon last, norwhen war was declared in his household; but I believe it happened in1816, at a very brilliant ball given by Monsieur D-----, acommissariat officer, that the commissary general, who had beenpromoted head of the department, admired the beautiful Madame B-----,the wife of a banker, and looked at her much more amorously than amarried man should have allowed himself to do.

At two o'clock in the morning it happened that the banker, tired ofwaiting any longer, went home leaving his wife at the ball.

"We are going to take you home to your house," said the baroness toMadame B-----. "Monsieur de V-----, offer your arm to Emilie!"

And now the baron is seated in his carriage next to a woman who,during the whole evening, had been offered and had refused a thousandattentions, and from whom he had hoped in vain to win a single look.There she was, in all the lustre of her youth and beauty, displayingthe whitest shoulders and the most ravishing lines of beauty. Herface, which still reflected the pleasures of the evening, seemed tovie with the brilliancy of her satin gown; her eyes to rival the blazeof her diamonds; and her skin to cope with the soft whiteness of themarabouts which tied in her hair, set off the ebon tresses and theringlets dangling from her headdress. Her tender voice would stir thechords of the most insensible hearts; in a word, so powerfully did shewake up love in the human breast that Robert d'Abrissel himself wouldperhaps have yielded to her.

The baron glanced at his wife, who, overcome with fatigue, had sunk tosleep in a corner of the carriage. He compared, in spite of himself,the toilette of Louise and that of Emilie. Now on occasions of thiskind the presence of a wife is singularly calculated to sharpen theunquenchable desires of a forbidden love. Moreover, the glances of thebaron, directed alternately to his wife and to her friend, were easyto interpret, and Madame B----- interpreted them.

"Poor Louise," she said, "she is overtired. Going out does not suither, her tastes are so simple. At Ecouen she was always reading--"

"And you, what used you to do?"

"I, sir? Oh, I thought about nothing but acting comely. It was mypassion!"

"But why do you so rarely visit Madame de V-----? We have a countryhouse at Saint-Prix, where we could have a comedy acted, in a littletheatre which I have built there."

"If I have not visited Madame de V-----, whose fault is it?" shereplied. "You are so jealous that you will not allow her either tovisit her friends or to receive them."

"I jealous!" cried Monsieur de V-----, "after four years of marriage,and after having had three children!"

"Hush," said Emilie, striking the fingers of the baron with her fan,"Louise is not asleep!"

The carriage stopped, and the baron offered his hand to his wife'sfair friend and helped her to get out.

"I hope," said Madame B-----, "that you will not prevent Louise fromcoming to the ball which I am giving this week."

The baron made her a respectful bow.

This ball was a triumph of Madame B-----'s and the ruin of the husbandof Louise; for he became desperately enamored of Emilie, to whom hewould have sacrificed a hundred lawful wives.

Some months after that evening on which the baron gained some hopes ofsucceeding with his wife's friend, he found himself one morning at thehouse of Madame B-----, when the maid came to announce the Baroness deV-----.

"Ah!" cried Emilie, "if Louise were to see you with me at such an houras this, she would be capable of compromising me. Go into that closetand don't make the least noise."

The husband, caught like a mouse in a trap, concealed himself in thecloset.

"Good-day, my dear!" said the two women, kissing each other.

"Why are you come so early?" asked Emilie.

"Oh! my dear, cannot you guess? I came to have an understanding withyou!"

"What, a duel?"

"Precisely, my dear. I am not like you, not I! I love my husband andam jealous of him. You! you are beautiful, charming, you have theright to be a coquette, you can very well make fun of B-----, to whomyour virtue seems to be of little importance. But as you have plentyof lovers in society, I beg you that you will leave me my husband. Heis always at your house, and he certainly would not come unless youwere the attraction."

"What a very pretty jacket you have on."

"Do you think so? My maid made it."

"Then I shall get Anastasia to take a lesson from Flore--"

"So, then, my dear, I count on your friendship to refrain frombringing trouble in my house."

"But, my child, I do not know how you can conceive that I should fallin love with your husband; he is coarse and fat as a deputy of thecentre. He is short and ugly--Ah! I will allow that he is generous,but that is all you can say for him, and this is a quality which isall in all only to opera girls; so that you can understand, my dear,that if I were choosing a lover, as you seem to suppose I am, Iwouldn't choose an old man like your baron. If I have given him anyhopes, if I have received him, it was certainly for the purpose ofamusing myself, and of giving you liberty; for I believed you had aweakness for young Rostanges."

"I?" exclaimed Louise, "God preserve me from it, my dear; he is themost intolerable coxcomb in the world. No, I assure you, I love myhusband! You may laugh as you choose; it is true. I know it may seemridiculous, but consider, he has made my fortune, he is no miser, andhe is everything to me, for it has been my unhappy lot to be left anorphan. Now even if I did not love him, I ought to try to preserve hisesteem. Have I a family who will some day give me shelter?"

"Come, my darling, let us speak no more about it," said Emilie,interrupting her friend, "for it tires me to death."

After a few trifling remarks the baroness left.

"How is this, monsieur?" cried Madame B-----, opening the door of thecloset where the baron was frozen with cold, for this incident tookplace in winter; "how is this? Aren't you ashamed of yourself for notadoring a little wife who is so interesting? Don't speak to me oflove; you may idolize me, as you say you do, for a certain time, butyou will never love me as you love Louise. I can see that in yourheart I shall never outweigh the interest inspired by a virtuous wife,children, and a family circle. I should one day be deserted and becomethe object of your bitter reflections. You would coldly say of me 'Ihave had that woman!' That phrase I have heard pronounced by men withthe most insulting indifference. You see, monsieur, that I reason incold blood, and that I do not love you, because you never would beable to love me."

"What must I do then to convince you of my love?" cried the baron,fixing his gaze on the young woman.

She had never appeared to him so ravishingly beautiful as at thatmoment, when her soft voice poured forth a torrent of words whosesternness was belied by the grace of her gestures, by the pose of herhead and by her coquettish attitude.

"Oh, when I see Louise in possession of a lover," she replied, "when Iknow that I am taking nothing away from her, and that she has nothingto regret in losing your affection; when I am quite sure that you loveher no longer, and have obtained certain proof of your indifferencetowards her--Oh, then I may listen to you!--These words must seemodious to you," she continued in an earnest voice; "and so indeed theyare, but do not think that they have been pronounced by me. I am therigorous mathematician who makes his deductions from a preliminaryproposition. You are married, and do you deliberately set about makinglove to some one else? I should be mad to give any encouragement to aman who cannot be mine eternally."

"Demon!" exclaimed the husband. "Yes, you are a demon, and not awoman!"

"Come now, you are really amusing!" said the young woman as she seizedthe bell-rope.

"Oh! no, Emilie," continued the lover of forty, in a calmer voice. "Donot ring; stop, forgive me! I will sacrifice everything for you."

"But I do not promise you anything!" she answered quickly with alaugh.

"My God! How you make me suffer!" he exclaimed.

"Well, and have not you in your life caused the unhappiness of morethan one person?" she asked. "Remember all the tears which have beenshed through you and for you! Oh, your passion does not inspire mewith the least pity. If you do not wish to make me laugh, make meshare your feelings."

"Adieu, madame, there is a certain clemency in your sternness. Iappreciate the lesson you have taught me. Yes, I have many faults toexpiate."

"Well then, go and repent of them," she said with a mocking smile; "inmaking Louise happy you will perform the rudest penance in yourpower."

They parted. But the love of the baron was too violent to allow ofMadame B-----'s harshness failing to accomplish her end, namely, theseparation of the married couple.

At the end of some months the Baron de V----- and his wife livedapart, though they lived in the same mansion. The baroness was theobject of universal pity, for in public she always did justice to herhusband and her resignation seemed wonderful. The most prudish womenof society found nothing to blame in the friendship which unitedLouise to the young Rostanges. And all was laid to the charge ofMonsieur de V-----'s folly.

When this last had made all the sacrifices that a man could make forMadame B-----, his perfidious mistress started for the waters of MountDore, for Switzerland and for Italy, on the pretext of seeking therestoration of her health.

The baron died of inflammation of the liver, being attended during hissickness by the most touching ministrations which his wife couldlavish upon him; and judging from the grief which he manifested athaving deserted her, he seemed never to have suspected herparticipation in the plan which had been his ruin.

This anecdote, which we have chosen from a thousand others,exemplifies the services which two women can render each other.

From the words--"Let me have the pleasure of bringing my husband" upto the conception of the drama, whose denouement was inflammation ofthe liver, every female perfidy was assembled to work out the end.Certain incidents will, of course, be met with which diversify more orless the typical example which we have given, but the march of thedrama is almost always the same. Moreover a husband ought always todistrust the woman friends of his wife. The subtle artifices of theselying creatures rarely fail of their effect, for they are seconded bytwo enemies, who always keep close to a man--and these are vanity anddesire.

4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES.

The man who hastens to tell another man that he has dropped a thousandfranc bill from his pocket-book, or even that the handkerchief iscoming out of his pocket, would think it a mean thing to warn him thatsome one was carrying off his wife. There is certainly somethingextremely odd in this moral inconsistency, but after all it admits ofexplanation. Since the law cannot exercise any interference withmatrimonial rights, the citizens have even less right to constitutethemselves a conjugal police; and when one restores a thousand francbill to him who has lost it, he acts under a certain kind ofobligation, founded on the principle which says, "Do unto others as yewould they should do unto you!"

But by what reasoning can justification be found for the help whichone celibate never asks in vain, but always receives from anothercelibate in deceiving a husband, and how shall we qualify therendering of such help? A man who is incapable of assisting a gendarmein discovering an assassin, has no scruple in taking a husband to atheatre, to a concert or even to a questionable house, in order tohelp a comrade, whom he would not hesitate to kill in a duelto-morrow, in keeping an assignation, the result of which is tointroduce into a family a spurious child, and to rob two brothers of aportion of their fortune by giving them a co-heir whom they neverperhaps would otherwise have had; or to effect the misery of threehuman beings. We must confess that integrity is a very rare virtue,and, very often, the man that thinks he has most actually has least.Families have been divided by feuds, and brothers have been murdered,which events would never have taken place if some friend had refusedto perform what passes to the world as a harmless trick.

It is impossible for a man to be without some hobby or other, and allof us are devoted either to hunting, fishing, gambling, music, money,or good eating. Well, your ruling passion will always be an accomplicein the snare which a lover sets for you, the invisible hand of thispassion will direct your friends, or his, whether they consent or not,to play a part in the little drama when they want to take you awayfrom home, or to induce you to leave your wife to the mercy ofanother. A lover will spend two whole months, if necessary, inplanning the construction of the mouse-trap.

I have seen the most cunning men on earth thus taken in.

There was a certain retired lawyer of Normandy. He lived in the littletown of B-----, where a regiment of the chasseurs of Cantal weregarrisoned. A fascinating officer of this regiment had fallen in lovewith the wife of this pettifogger, and the regiment was leaving beforethe two lovers had been able to enjoy the least privacy. It was thefourth military man over whom the lawyer had triumphed. As he left thedinner-table one evening, about six o'clock, the husband took a walkon the terrace of his garden from which he could see the whole countryside. The officers arrived at this moment to take leave of him.Suddenly the flame of a conflagration burst forth on the horizon."Heavens! La Daudiniere is on fire!" exclaimed the major. He was anold simple-minded soldier, who had dined at home. Every one mountedhorse. The young wife smiled as she found herself alone, for herlover, hidden in the coppice, had said to her, "It is a straw stack onfire!" The flank of the husband was turned with all the more facilityin that a fine courser was provided for him by the captain, and with adelicacy very rare in the cavalry, the lover actually sacrificed a fewmoments of his happiness in order to catch up with the cavalcade, andreturn in company with the husband.

Marriage is a veritable duel, in which persistent watchfulness isrequired in order to triumph over an adversary; for, if you areunlucky enough to turn your head, the sword of the celibate willpierce you through and through.

5. OF THE MAID.

The prettiest waiting-maid I have ever seen is that of Madame V----y,a lady who to-day plays at Paris a brilliant part among the mostfashionable women, and passes for a wife who keeps on excellent termswith her husband. Mademoiselle Celestine is a person whose points ofbeauty are so numerous that, in order to describe her, it would benecessary to translate the thirty verses which we are told form aninscription in the seraglio of the Grand Turk and contain each of theman excellent description of one of the thirty beauties of women.

"You show a great deal of vanity in keeping near you such anaccomplished creature," said a lady to the mistress of the house.

"Ah! my dear, some day perhaps you will find yourself jealous of me inpossessing Celestine."

"She must be endowed with very rare qualities, I suppose? She perhapsdresses you well?"

"Oh, no, very badly!"

"She sews well?"

"She never touches her needle."

"She is faithful?"

"She is one of those whose fidelity costs more than the most cunningdishonesty."

"You astonish me, my dear; she is then your foster-sister?"

"Not at all; she is positively good for nothing, but she is moreuseful to me than any other member of my household. If she remainswith me ten years, I have promised her twenty thousand francs. It willbe money well earned, and I shall not forget to give it!" said theyoung woman, nodding her head with a meaning gesture.

At last the questioner of Madame V----y understood.

When a woman has no friend of her own sex intimate enough to assisther in proving false to marital love, her maid is a last resourcewhich seldom fails in bringing about the desired result.

Oh! after ten years of marriage to find under his roof, and to see allthe time, a young girl of from sixteen to eighteen, fresh, dressedwith taste, the treasures of whose beauty seem to breathe defiance,whose frank bearing is irresistibly attractive, whose downcast eyesseem to fear you, whose timid glance tempts you, and for whom theconjugal bed has no secrets, for she is at once a virgin and anexperienced woman! How can a man remain cold, like St. Anthony, beforesuch powerful sorcery, and have the courage to remain faithful to thegood principles represented by a scornful wife, whose face is alwaysstern, whose manners are always snappish, and who frequently refusesto be caressed? What husband is stoical enough to resist such fires,such frosts? There, where you see a new harvest of pleasure, the younginnocent sees an income, and your wife her liberty. It is a littlefamily compact, which is signed in the interest of good will.

In this case, your wife acts with regard to marriage as youngfashionables do with regard to their country. If they are drawn forthe army, they buy a man to carry the musket, to die in their placeand to spare them the hardships of military life.

In compromises of this sort there is not a single woman who does notknow how to put her husband in the wrong. I have noticed that, by asupreme stroke of diplomacy, the majority of wives do not admit theirmaids into the secret of the part which they give them to play. Theytrust to nature, and assume an affected superiority over the lover andhis mistress.

These secret perfidies of women explain to a great degree the oddfeatures of married life which are to be observed in the world; and Ihave heard women discuss, with profound sagacity, the dangers whichare inherent in this terrible method of attack, and it is necessary toknow thoroughly both the husband and the creature to whom he is to beabandoned, in order to make successful use of her. Many a woman, inthis connection, has been the victim of her own calculations.

Moreover, the more impetuous and passionate a husband shows himself,the less will a woman dare to employ this expedient; but a husbandcaught in this snare will never have anything to say to his sternbetter-half, when the maid, giving evidence of the fault she hascommitted, is sent into the country with an infant and a dowry.

6. OF THE DOCTOR.

The doctor is one of the most potent auxiliaries of an honest woman,when she wishes to acquire a friendly divorce from her husband. Theservices that the doctor renders, most of the time without knowing it,to a woman, are of such importance that there does not exist a singlehouse in France where the doctor is chosen by any one but the wife.

All doctors know what great influence women have on their reputation;thus we meet with few doctors who do not study to please the ladies.When a man of talent has become celebrated it is true that he does notlend himself to the crafty conspiracies which women hatch; but withoutknowing it he becomes involved in them.

I suppose that a husband taught by the adventures of his own youthmakes up his mind to pick out a doctor for his wife, from the firstdays of his marriage. So long as his feminine adversary fails toconceive the assistance that she may derive from this ally, she willsubmit in silence; but later on, if all her allurements fail to winover the man chosen by her husband, she will take a more favorableopportunity to give her husband her confidence, in the followingremarkable manner.

"I don't like the way in which the doctor feels my pulse!"

And of course the doctor is dropped.

Thus it happens that either a woman chooses her doctor, wins over theman who has been imposed upon her, or procures his dismissal. But thiscontest is very rare; the majority of young men who marry areacquainted with none but beardless doctors whom they have no anxietyto procure for their wives, and almost always the Esculapius of thehousehold is chosen by the feminine power. Thus it happens that somefine morning the doctor, when he leaves the chamber of madame, who hasbeen in bed for a fortnight, is induced by her to say to you:

"I do not say that the condition of madame presents any serioussymptoms; but this constant drowsiness, this general listlessness, andher natural tendency to a spinal affection demand great care. Herlymph is inspissated. She wants a change of air. She ought to be senteither to the waters of Bareges or to the waters of Plombieres."

"All right, doctor."

You allow your wife to go to Plombieres; but she goes there becauseCaptain Charles is quartered in the Vosges. She returns in capitalhealth and the waters of Plombieres have done wonders for her. She haswritten to you every day, she has lavished upon you from a distanceevery possible caress. The danger of a spinal affection has utterlydisappeared.

There is extant a little pamphlet, whose publication was prompteddoubtless by hate. It was published in Holland, and it contains somevery curious details of the manner in which Madame de Maintenonentered into an understanding with Fagon, for the purposes ofcontrolling Louis XIV. Well, some morning your doctor will threatenyou, as Fagon threatened his master, with a fit of apoplexy, if you donot diet yourself. This witty work of satire, doubtless the productionof some courtier, entitled "Madame de Saint Tron," has beeninterpreted by the modern author who has become proverbial as "theyoung doctor." But his delightful sketch is very much superior to thework whose title I cite for the benefit of the book-lovers, and wehave great pleasure in acknowledging that the work of our clevercontemporary has prevented us, out of regard for the glory of theseventeenth century, from publishing the fragment of the old pamphlet.

Very frequently a doctor becomes duped by the judicious manoeuvres ofa young and delicate wife, and comes to you with the announcement:

"Sir, I would not wish to alarm madame with regard to her condition;but I will advise you, if you value her health, to keep her in perfecttranquillity. The irritation at this moment seems to threaten thechest, and we must gain control of it; there is need of rest for her,perfect rest; the least agitation might change the seat of the malady.At this crisis, the prospect of bearing a child would be fatal toher."

"But, doctor--"

"Ah, yes! I know that!"

He laughs and leaves the house.

Like the rod of Moses, the doctor's mandate makes and unmakesgenerations. The doctor will restore you to your marriage bed with thesame arguments that he used in debarring you. He treats your wife forcomplaints which she has not, in order to cure her of those which shehas, and all the while you have no idea of it; for the scientificjargon of doctors can only be compared to the layers in which theyenvelop their pills.

An honest woman in her chamber with the doctor is like a minister sureof a majority; she has it in her power to make a horse, or a carriage,according to her good pleasure and her taste; she will send you awayor receive you, as she likes. Sometimes she will pretend to be ill inorder to have a chamber separate from yours; sometimes she willsurround herself with all the paraphernalia of an invalid; she willhave an old woman for a nurse, regiments of vials and of bottles, and,environed by these ramparts, will defy you by her invalid airs. Shewill talk to you in such a depressing way of the electuaries and ofthe soothing draughts which she has taken, of the agues which she hashad, of her plasters and cataplasms, that she will fill you withdisgust at these sickly details, if all the time these sham sufferingsare not intended to serve as engines by means of which, eventually, asuccessful attack may be made on that singular abstraction known asyour honor.

In this way your wife will be able to fortify herself at every pointof contact which you possess with the world, with society and withlife. Thus everything will take arms against you, and you will bealone among all these enemies. But suppose that it is yourunprecedented privilege to possess a wife who is without religiousconnections, without parents or intimate friends; that you havepenetration enough to see through all the tricks by which your wife'slover tries to entrap you; that you still have sufficient love foryour fair enemy to resist all the Martons of the earth; that, in fact,you have for your doctor a man who is so celebrated that he has notime to listen to the maunderings of your wife; or that if yourEsculapius is madame's vassal, you demand a consultation, and anincorruptible doctor intervenes every time the favorite doctorprescribes a remedy that disquiets you; even in that case, yourprospects will scarcely be more brilliant. In fact, even if you do notsuccumb to this invasion of allies, you must not forget that, so far,your adversary has not, so to speak, struck the decisive blow. If youhold out still longer, your wife, having flung round you thread uponthread, as a spider spins his web, an invisible net, will resort tothe arms which nature has given her, which civilization has perfected,and which will be treated of in the next Meditation.

MEDITATION XXVI.

OF DIFFERENT WEAPONS.

A weapon is anything which is used for the purpose of wounding. Fromthis point of view, some sentiments prove to be the most cruel weaponswhich man can employ against his fellow man. The genius of Schiller,lucid as it was comprehensive, seems to have revealed all thephenomena which certain ideas bring to light in the human organizationby their keen and penetrating action. A man may be put to death by athought. Such is the moral of those heartrending scenes, when in TheBrigands the poet shows a young man, with the aid of certain ideas,making such powerful assaults on the heart of an old man, that he endsby causing the latter's death. The time is not far distant whenscience will be able to observe the complicated mechanism of ourthoughts and to apprehend the transmission of our feelings. Somedeveloper of the occult sciences will prove that our intellectualorganization constitutes nothing more than a kind of interior man, whoprojects himself with less violence than the exterior man, and thatthe struggle which may take place between two such powers as these,although invisible to our feeble eyes, is not a less mortal strugglethan that in which our external man compels us to engage.

But these considerations belong to a different department of studyfrom that in which we are now engaged; these subjects we intend todeal with in a future publication; some of our friends are alreadyacquainted with one of the most important,--that, namely, entitled"THE PATHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE, or Meditations mathematical, physical,chemical and transcendental on the manifestations of thought, takenunder all the forms which are produced by the state of society,whether by living, marriage, conduct, veterinary medicine, or byspeech and action, etc.," in which all these great questions arefully discussed. The aim of this brief metaphysical observation isonly to remind you that the higher classes of society reason too wellto admit of their being attacked by any other than intellectual arms.

Although it is true that tender and delicate souls are found envelopedin a body of metallic hardness, at the same time there are souls ofbronze enveloped in bodies so supple and capricious that their graceattracts the friendship of others, and their beauty calls for acaress. But if you flatter the exterior man with your hand, the Homoduplex, the interior man, to use an expression of Buffon, immediatelyrouses himself and rends you with his keen points of contact.

This description of a special class of human creatures, which we hopeyou will not run up against during your earthly journey, presents apicture of what your wife may be to you. Every one of the sentimentswhich nature has endowed your heart with, in their gentlest form, willbecome a dagger in the hand of your wife. You will be stabbed everymoment, and you will necessarily succumb; for your love will flow likeblood from every wound.

This is the last struggle, but for her it also means victory.

In order to carry out the distinction which we think we haveestablished among three sorts of feminine temperament, we will dividethis Meditation into three parts, under the following titles:

1. OF HEADACHES.

2. OF NERVOUS AFFECTATIONS.

3. OF MODESTY, IN ITS CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE.

1. OF HEADACHES.

Women are constantly the dupes or the victims of excessivesensibility; but we have already demonstrated that with the greaternumber of them this delicacy of soul must needs, almost without theirknowing it, receive many rude blows, from the very fact of theirmarriage. (See Meditations entitled The Predestined and Of theHoneymoon.) Most of the means of defence instinctively employed byhusbands are nothing but traps set for the liveliness of feminineaffections.

Now the moment comes when the wife, during the Civil War, traces by asingle act of thought the history of her moral life, and is irritatedon perceiving the prodigious way in which you have taken advantage ofher sensibility. It is very rarely that women, moved either by aninnate feeling for revenge, which they themselves can never explain,or by their instinct of domination, fail to discover that this qualityin their natural machinery, when brought into play against the man, isinferior to no other instrument for obtaining ascendancy over him.

With admirable cleverness, they proceed to find out what chords in thehearts of their husbands are most easily touched; and when once theydiscover this secret, they eagerly proceed to put it into practice;then, like a child with a mechanical toy, whose spring excites theircuriosity, they go on employing it, carelessly calling into play themovements of the instrument, and satisfied simply with their successin doing so. If they kill you, they will mourn over you with the bestgrace in the world, as the most virtuous, the most excellent, the mostsensible of men.

In this way your wife will first arm herself with that generoussentiment which leads us to respect those who are in pain. The manmost disposed to quarrel with a woman full of life and health becomeshelpless before a woman who is weak and feeble. If your wife has notattained the end of her secret designs, by means of those variousmethods already described, she will quickly seize this all-powerfulweapon. In virtue of this new strategic method, you will see the younggirl, so strong in life and beauty, whom you had wedded in her flower,metamorphosing herself into a pale and sickly woman.

Now headache is an affection which affords infinite resources to awoman. This malady, which is the easiest of all to feign, for it isdestitute of any apparent symptom, merely obliges her to say: "I havea headache." A woman trifles with you and there is no one in the worldwho can contradict her skull, whose impenetrable bones defy touch orocular test. Moreover, headache is, in our opinion, the queen ofmaladies, the pleasantest and the most terrible weapon employed bywives against their husbands. There are some coarse and violent menwho have been taught the tricks of women by their mistresses, in thehappy hours of their celibacy, and so flatter themselves that they arenever to be caught by this vulgar trap. But all their efforts, alltheir arguments end by being vanquished before the magic of thesewords: "I have a headache." If a husband complains, or ventures on areproach, if he tries to resist the power of this Il buondo cani ofmarriage, he is lost.

Imagine a young woman, voluptuously lying on a divan, her head softlysupported by a cushion, one hand hanging down; on a small table closeat hand is her glass of lime-water. Now place by her side a burlyhusband. He has made five or six turns round the room; but each timehe has turned on his heels to begin his walk all over again, thelittle invalid has made a slight movement of her eyebrows in a vainattempt to remind him that the slightest noise fatigues her. At lasthe musters all his courage and utters a protest against her pretendedmalady, in the bold phrase:

"And have you really a headache?"

At these words the young woman slightly raises her languid head, liftsan arm, which feebly falls back again upon her divan, raises her eyesto the ceiling, raises all that she has power to raise; then dartingat you a leaden glance, she says in a voice of remarkable feebleness:

"Oh! What can be the matter with me? I suffer the agonies of death!And this is all the comfort you give me! Ah! you men, it is plainlyseen that nature has not given you the task of bringing children intothe world. What egoists and tyrants you are! You take us in all thebeauty of our youth, fresh, rosy, with tapering waist, and then all iswell! When your pleasures have ruined the blooming gifts which wereceived from nature, you never forgive us for having forfeited themto you! That was all understood. You will allow us to have neither thevirtues nor the sufferings of our condition. You must needs havechildren, and we pass many nights in taking care of them. Butchild-bearing has ruined our health, and left behind the germs ofserious maladies.--Oh, what pain I suffer! There are few women who arenot subject to headaches; but your wife must be an exception. You evenlaugh at our sufferings; that is generosity!--please don't walk about--I should not have expected this of you!--Stop the clock; the clickof the pendulum rings in my head. Thanks! Oh, what an unfortunatecreature I am! Have you a scent-bottle with you? Yes, oh! for pity'ssake, allow me to suffer in peace, and go away; for this scent splitsmy head!"

What can you say in reply? Do you not hear within you a voice whichcries, "And what if she is actually suffering?" Moreover, almost allhusbands evacuate the field of battle very quietly, while their wiveswatch them from the corner of their eyes, marching off on tip-toe andclosing the door quietly on the chamber henceforth to be consideredsacred by them.

Such is the headache, true or false, which is patronized at your home.Then the headache begins to play a regular role in the bosom of yourfamily. It is a theme on which a woman can play many admirablevariations. She sets it forth in every key. With the aid of theheadache alone a wife can make a husband desperate. A headache seizesmadame when she chooses, where she chooses, and as much as shechooses. There are headaches of five days, of ten minutes, periodic orintermittent headaches.

You sometimes find your wife in bed, in pain, helpless, and the blindsof her room are closed. The headache has imposed silence on every one,from the regions of the porter's lodge, where he is cutting wood, evento the garret of your groom, from which he is throwing down innocentbundles of straw. Believing in this headache, you leave the house, buton your return you find that madame has decamped! Soon madame returns,fresh and ruddy:

"The doctor came," she says, "and advised me to take exercise, and Ifind myself much better!"

Another day you wish to enter madame's room.

"Oh, sir," says the maid, showing the most profound astonishment,"madame has her usual headache, and I have never seen her in suchpain! The doctor has been sent for."

"You are a happy man," said Marshal Augereau to General R-----, "tohave such a pretty wife!"

"To have!" replied the other. "If I have my wife ten days in the year,that is about all. These confounded women have always either theheadache or some other thing!"

The headache in France takes the place of the sandals, which, inSpain, the Confessor leaves at the door of the chamber in which he iswith his penitent.

If your wife, foreseeing some hostile intentions on your part, wishesto make herself as inviolable as the charter, she immediately gets upa little headache performance. She goes to bed in a most deliberatefashion, she utters shrieks which rend the heart of the hearer. Shegoes gracefully through a series of gesticulations so cleverlyexecuted that you might think her a professional contortionist. Nowwhat man is there so inconsiderate as to dare to speak to a sufferingwoman about desires which, in him, prove the most perfect health?Politeness alone demands of him perfect silence. A woman knows underthese circumstances that by means of this all-powerful headache, shecan at her will paste on her bed the placard which sends back home theamateurs who have been allured by the announcement of the ComedieFrancaise, when they read the words: "Closed through the suddenindisposition of Mademoiselle Mars."

O headache, protectress of love, tariff of married life, buckleragainst which all married desires expire! O mighty headache! Can it bepossible that lovers have never sung thy praises, personified thee, orraised thee to the skies? O magic headache, O delusive headache, blestbe the brain that first invented thee! Shame on the doctor who shallfind out thy preventive! Yes, thou art the only ill that women bless,doubtless through gratitude for the good things thou dispensest tothem, O deceitful headache! O magic headache!

2. OF NERVOUS AFFECTATIONS.

There is, however, a power which is superior even to that of theheadache; and we must avow to the glory of France, that this power isone of the most recent which has been won by Parisian genius. As inthe case with all the most useful discoveries of art and science, noone knows to whose intellect it is due. Only, it is certain that itwas towards the middle of the last century that "Vapors" made theirfirst appearance in France. Thus while Papin was applying the force ofvaporized water in mechanical problems, a French woman, whose nameunhappily is unknown, had the glory of endowing her sex with thefaculty of vaporizing their fluids. Very soon the prodigious influenceobtained by vapors was extended to the nerves; it was thus in passingfrom fibre to fibre that the science of neurology was born. Thisadmirable science has since then led such men as Philips and otherclever physiologists to the discovery of the nervous fluid in itscirculation; they are now perhaps on the eve of identifying itsorgans, and the secret of its origin and of its evaporation. And thus,thanks to certain quackeries of this kind, we may be enabled some dayto penetrate the mysteries of that unknown power which we have alreadycalled more than once in the present book, the Will. But do not letus trespass on the territory of medical philosophy. Let us considerthe nerves and the vapors solely in their connection with marriage.

Victims of Neurosis (a pathological term under which are comprised allaffections of the nervous system) suffer in two ways, as far asmarried women are concerned; for our physiology has the loftiestdisdain for medical classifications. Thus we recognize only:

1. CLASSIC NEUROSIS.

2. ROMANTIC NEUROSIS.

The classic affection has something bellicose and excitable on it.Those who thus suffer are as violent in their antics as pythonesses,as frantic as monads, as excited as bacchantes; it is a revival ofantiquity, pure and simple.

The romantic sufferers are mild and plaintive as the ballads sung amidthe mists of Scotland. They are pallid as young girls carried to theirbier by the dance or by love; they are eminently elegiac and theybreathe all the melancholy of the North.

That woman with black hair, with piercing eye, with high color, withdry lips and a powerful hand, will become excited and convulsive; sherepresents the genius of classic neurosis; while a young blonde woman,with white skin, is the genius of romantic neurosis; to one belongsthe empire gained by nerves, to the other the empire gained by vapors.

Very frequently a husband, when he comes home, finds his wife intears.

"What is the matter, my darling?"

"It is nothing."

"But you are in tears!"

"I weep without knowing why. I am quite sad! I saw faces in theclouds, and those faces never appear to me except on the eve of somedisaster--I think I must be going to die."

Then she talks to you in a low voice of her dead father, of her deaduncle, of her dead grandfather, of her dead cousin. She invokes allthese mournful shades, she feels as if she had all their sicknesses,she is attacked with all the pains they felt, she feels her heartpalpitate with excessive violence, she feels her spleen swelling. Yousay to yourself, with a self-satisfied air:

"I know exactly what this is all about!"

And then you try to soothe her; but you find her a woman who yawnslike an open box, who complains of her chest, who begins to weep anew,who implores you to leave her to her melancholy and her mournfulmemories. She talks to you about her last wishes, follows her ownfuneral, is buried, plants over her tomb the green canopy of a weepingwillow, and at the very time when you would like to raise a joyfulepithalamium, you find an epitaph to greet you all in black. Your wishto console her melts away in the cloud of Ixion.

There are women of undoubted fidelity who in this way extort fromtheir feeling husbands cashmere shawls, diamonds, the payment of theirdebts, or the rent of a box at the theatre; but almost always vaporsare employed as decisive weapons in Civil War.

On the plea of her spinal affection or of her weak chest, a womantakes pains to seek out some distraction or other; you see herdressing herself in soft fabrics like an invalid with all the symptomsof spleen; she never goes out because an intimate friend, her motheror her sister, has tried to tear her away from that divan whichmonopolizes her and on which she spends her life in improvisingelegies. Madame is going to spend a fortnight in the country becausethe doctor orders it. In short, she goes where she likes and does whatshe likes. Is it possible that there can be a husband so brutal as tooppose such desires, by hindering a wife from going to seek a cure forher cruel sufferings? For it has been established after many longdiscussions that in the nerves originate the most fearful torture.

But it is especially in bed that vapors play their part. There when awoman has not a headache she has her vapors; and when she has neithervapors nor headache, she is under the protection of the girdle ofVenus, which, as you know, is a myth.

Among the women who fight with you the battle of vapors, are some moreblonde, more delicate, more full of feeling than others, and whopossess the gift of tears. How admirably do they know how to weep!They weep when they like, as they like and as much as they like. Theyorganize a system of offensive warfare which consists of manifestingsublime resignation, and they gain victories which are all the morebrilliant, inasmuch as they remain all the time in excellent health.

Does a husband, irritated beyond all measure, at last express hiswishes to them? They regard him with an air of submission, bow theirheads and keep silence. This pantomime almost always puts a husband torout. In conjugal struggles of this kind, a man prefers a woman shouldspeak and defend herself, for then he may show elation or annoyance;but as for these women, not a word. Their silence distresses you andyou experience a sort of remorse, like the murderer who, when he findshis victim offers no resistance, trembles with redoubled fear. Hewould prefer to slay him in self-defence. You return to the subject.As you draw near, your wife wipes away her tears and hides herhandkerchief, so as to let you see that she has been weeping. You aremelted, you implore your little Caroline to speak, your sensibilityhas been touched and you forget everything; then she sobs while shespeaks, and speaks while she sobs. This is a sort of machineeloquence; she deafens you with her tears, with her words which comejerked out in confusion; it is the clapper and torrent of a mill.

French women and especially Parisians possess in a marvelous degreethe secret by which such scenes are enacted, and to these scenes theirvoices, their sex, their toilet, their manner give a wonderful charm.How often do the tears upon the cheeks of these adorable actressesgive way to a piquant smile, when they see their husbands hasten tobreak the silk lace, the weak fastening of their corsets, or torestore the comb which holds together the tresses of their hair andthe bunch of golden ringlets always on the point of falling down?

But how all these tricks of modernity pale before the genius ofantiquity, before nervous attacks which are violent, before thePyrrhic dance of married life! Oh! how many hopes for a lover arethere in the vivacity of those convulsive movements, in the fire ofthose glances, in the strength of those limbs, beautiful even incontortion! It is then that a woman is carried away like an impetuouswind, darts forth like the flames of a conflagration, exhibits amovement like a billow which glides over the white pebbles. She isovercome with excess of love, she sees the future, she is the seer whoprophesies, but above all, she sees the present moment and tramples onher husband, and impresses him with a sort of terror.

The sight of his wife flinging off vigorous men as if they were somany feathers, is often enough to deter a man from ever striving towrong her. He will be like the child who, having pulled the trigger ofsome terrific engine, has ever afterwards an incredible respect forthe smallest spring. I have known a man, gentle and amiable in hisways, whose eyes were fixed upon those of his wife, exactly as if hehad been put into a lion's cage, and some one had said to him that hemust not irritate the beast, if he would escape with his life.

Nervous attacks of this kind are very fatiguing and become every daymore rare. Romanticism, however, has maintained its ground.

Sometimes, we meet with phlegmatic husbands, those men whose love islong enduring, because they store up their emotions, whose genius getsthe upper hand of these headaches and nervous attacks; but thesesublime creatures are rare. Faithful disciples of the blessed St.Thomas, who wished to put his finger into the wound, they are endowedwith an incredulity worthy of an atheist. Imperturbable in the midstof all these fraudulent headaches and all these traps set by neurosis,they concentrate their attention on the comedy which is being playedbefore them, they examine the actress, they search for one of thesprings that sets her going; and when they have discovered themechanism of this display, they arm themselves by giving a slightimpulse to the puppet-valve, and thus easily assure themselves eitherof the reality of the disease or the artifices of these conjugalmummeries.

But if by study which is almost superhuman in its intensity a husbandescapes all the artifices which lawless and untamable love suggests towomen, he will beyond doubt be overcome by the employment of aterrible weapon, the last which a woman would resort to, for she neverdestroys with her own hands her empire over her husband without somesort of repugnance. But this is a poisoned weapon as powerful as thefatal knife of the executioner. This reflection brings us to the lastparagraph of the present Meditation.

3. OF MODESTY, IN ITS CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE.

Before taking up the subject of modesty, it may perhaps be necessaryto inquire whether there is such a thing. Is it anything in a womanbut well understood coquetry? Is it anything but a sentiment thatclaims the right, on a woman's part, to dispose of her own body as shechooses, as one may well believe, when we consider that half the womenin the world go almost naked? Is it anything but a social chimera, asDiderot supposed, reminding us that this sentiment always gives waybefore sickness and before misery?

Justice may be done to all these questions.

An ingenious author has recently put forth the view that men are muchmore modest than women. He supports this contention by a great mass ofsurgical experiences; but, in order that his conclusions merit ourattention, it would be necessary that for a certain time men weresubjected to treatment by women surgeons.

The opinion of Diderot is of still less weight.

To deny the existence of modesty, because it disappears during thosecrises in which almost all human sentiments are annihilated, is asunreasonable as to deny that life exists because death sooner or latercomes.

Let us grant, then, that one sex has as much modesty as the other, andlet us inquire in what modesty consists.

Rousseau makes modesty the outcome of all those coquetries whichfemales display before males. This opinion appears to us equallymistaken.

The writers of the eighteenth century have doubtless rendered immenseservices to society; but their philosophy, based as it is uponsensualism, has never penetrated any deeper than the human epidermis.They have only considered the exterior universe; and so they haveretarded, for some time, the moral development of man and the progressof science which will always draw its first principles from theGospel, principles hereafter to be best understood by the ferventdisciples of the Son of Man.

The study of thought's mysteries, the discovery of those organs whichbelong to the human soul, the geometry of its forces, the phenomena ofits active power, the appreciation of the faculty by which we seem tohave an independent power of bodily movement, so as to transportourselves whither we will and to see without the aid of bodily organs,--in a word the laws of thought's dynamic and those of its physicalinfluence,--these things will fall to the lot of the next century, astheir portion in the treasury of human sciences. And perhaps we, ofthe present time, are merely occupied in quarrying the enormous blockswhich later on some mighty genius will employ in the building of aglorious edifice.

Thus the error of Rousseau is simply the error of his age. He explainsmodesty by the relations of different human beings to each otherinstead of explaining it by the moral relations of each one withhimself. Modesty is no more susceptible of analysis than conscience;and this perhaps is another way of saying that modesty is theconscience of the body; for while conscience directs our sentimentsand the least movement of our thoughts towards the good, modestypresides over external movements. The actions which clash with ourinterests and thus disobey the laws of conscience wound us more thanany other; and if they are repeated call forth our hatred. It is thesame with acts which violate modesty in their relations to love, whichis nothing but the expression of our whole sensibility. If extrememodesty is one of the conditions on which the reality of marriage isbased, as we have tried to prove [See Conjugal Catechism, MeditationIV.], it is evident that immodesty will destroy it. But thisposition, which would require long deductions for the acceptance ofthe physiologist, women generally apply, as it were, mechanically; forsociety, which exaggerates everything for the benefit of the exteriorman, develops this sentiment of women from childhood, and around itare grouped almost every other sentiment. Moreover, the moment thatthis boundless veil, which takes away the natural brutality from theleast gesture, is dragged down, woman disappears. Heart, mind, love,grace, all are in ruins. In a situation where the virginal innocenceof a daughter of Tahiti is most brilliant, the European becomesdetestable. In this lies the last weapon which a wife seizes, in orderto escape from the sentiment which her husband still fosters towardsher. She is powerful because she had made herself loathsome; and thiswoman, who would count it as the greatest misfortune that her lovershould be permitted to see the slightest mystery of her toilette,is delighted to exhibit herself to her husband in the mostdisadvantageous situation that can possibly be imagined.

It is by means of this rigorous system that she will try to banish youfrom the conjugal bed. Mrs. Shandy may be taken to mean us harm inbidding the father of Tristram wind up the clock; so long as your wifeis not blamed for the pleasure she takes in interrupting you by themost imperative questions. Where there formerly was movement and lifeis now lethargy and death. An act of love becomes a transaction longdiscussed and almost, as it were, settled by notarial seal. But wehave in another place shown that we never refuse to seize upon thecomic element in a matrimonial crisis, although here we may bepermitted to disdain the diversion which the muse of Verville and ofMarshall have found in the treachery of feminine manoeuvres, theinsulting audacity of their talk, amid the cold-blooded cynicism whichthey exhibit in certain situations. It is too sad to laugh at, and toofunny to mourn over. When a woman resorts to such extreme measures,worlds at once separate her from her husband. Nevertheless, there aresome women to whom Heaven has given the gift of being charming underall circumstances, who know how to put a certain witty and comic graceinto these performances, and who have such smooth tongues, to use theexpression of Sully, that they obtain forgiveness for their capricesand their mockeries, and never estrange the hearts of their husbands.

What soul is so robust, what man so violently in love as to persist inhis passion, after ten years of marriage, in presence of a wife wholoves him no longer, who gives him proofs of this every moment, whorepulses him, who deliberately shows herself bitter, caustic, sicklyand capricious, and who will abjure her vows of elegance andcleanliness, rather than not see her husband turn away from her; inpresence of a wife who will stake the success of her schemes upon thehorror caused by her indecency?

All this, my dear sir, is so much more horrible because--

XCII.

LOVERS IGNORE MODESTY.

We have now arrived at the last infernal circle in the Divine Comedyof Marriage. We are at the very bottom of Hell. There is somethinginexpressibly terrible in the situation of a married woman at themoment when unlawful love turns her away from her duties as mother andwife. As Diderot has very well put it, "infidelity in a woman is likeunbelief in a priest, the last extreme of human failure; for her it isthe greatest of social crimes, since it implies in her every othercrime besides, and indeed either a wife profanes her lawless love bycontinuing to belong to her husband, or she breaks all the ties whichattach her to her family, by giving herself over altogether to herlover. She ought to choose between the two courses, for her solepossible excuse lies in the intensity of her love."

She lives then between the claims of two obligations. It is a dilemma;she will work either the unhappiness of her lover, if he is sincere inhis passion, or that of her husband, if she is still beloved by him.

It is to this frightful dilemma of feminine life that all the strangeinconsistencies of women's conduct is to be attributed. In this liesthe origin of all their lies, all their perfidies; here is the secretof all their mysteries. It is something to make one shudder. Moreover,even as simply based upon cold-blooded calculations, the conduct of awoman who accepts the unhappiness which attends virtue and scorns thebliss which is bought by crime, is a hundred times more reasonable.Nevertheless, almost all women will risk suffering in the future andages of anguish for the ecstasy of one half hour. If the human feelingof self-preservation, if the fear of death does not check them, howfruitless must be the laws which send them for two years to theMadelonnettes? O sublime infamy! And when one comes to think that hefor whom these sacrifices are to be made is one of our brethren, agentleman to whom we would not trust our fortune, if we had one, a manwho buttons his coat just as all of us do, it is enough to make oneburst into a roar of laughter so loud, that starting from theLuxembourg it would pass over the whole of Paris and startle an assbrowsing in the pasture at Montmartre.

It will perhaps appear extraordinary that in speaking of marriage wehave touched upon so many subjects; but marriage is not only the wholeof human life, it is the whole of two human lives. Now just as theaddition of a figure to the drawing of a lottery multiplies thechances a hundredfold, so one single life united to another lifemultiplies by a startling progression the risks of human life, whichare in any case so manifold.

MEDITATION XXVII.

OF THE LAST SYMPTOMS.

The author of this book has met in the world so many people possessedby a fanatic passion for a knowledge of the mean time, for watcheswith a second hand, and for exactness in the details of theirexistence, that he has considered this Meditation too necessary forthe tranquillity of a great number of husbands, to be omitted. Itwould have been cruel to leave men, who are possessed with the passionfor learning the hour of the day, without a compass whereby toestimate the last variations in the matrimonial zodiac, and tocalculate the precise moment when the sign of the Minotaur appears onthe horizon. The knowledge of conjugal time would require a whole bookfor its exposition, so fine and delicate are the observations requiredby the task. The master admits that his extreme youth has notpermitted him as yet to note and verify more than a few symptoms; buthe feels a just pride, on his arrival at the end of his difficultenterprise, from the consciousness that he is leaving to hissuccessors a new field of research; and that in a matter apparently sotrite, not only was there much to be said, but also very many pointsare found remaining which may yet be brought into the clear light ofobservation. He therefore presents here without order or connectionthe rough outlines which he has so far been able to execute, in thehope that later he may have leisure to co-ordinate them and to arrangethem in a complete system. If he has been so far kept back in theaccomplishment of a task of supreme national importance, he believes,he may say, without incurring the charge of vanity, that he has hereindicated the natural division of those symptoms. They are necessarilyof two kinds: the unicorns and the bicorns. The unicorn Minotaur isthe least mischievous. The two culprits confine themselves to aplatonic love, in which their passion, at least, leaves no visibletraces among posterity; while the bicorn Minotaur is unhappiness withall its fruits.

We have marked with an asterisk the symptoms which seem to concern thelatter kind.

MINOTAURIC OBSERVATIONS.

I.

*When, after remaining a long time aloof from her husband, a womanmakes overtures of a very marked character in order to attract hislove, she acts in accordance with the axiom of maritime law, whichsays: The flag protects the cargo.

II.

A woman is at a ball, one of her friends comes up to her and says:

"Your husband has much wit."

"You find it so?"

III.

Your wife discovers that it is time to send your boy to a boardingschool, with whom, a little time ago, she was never going to part.

IV.

*In Lord Abergavenny's suit for divorce, the valet de chambredeposed that "the countess had such a detestation of all that belongedto my lord that he had very often seen her burning the scraps of paperwhich he had touched in her room."

V.

If an indolent woman becomes energetic, if a woman who formerly hatedstudy learns a foreign language; in short, every appearance of acomplete change in character is a decisive symptom.

VI.

The woman who is happy in her affections does not go much into theworld.

VII.

The woman who has a lover becomes very indulgent in judging others.

VIII.

*A husband gives to his wife a hundred crowns a month for dress; and,taking everything into account, she spends at least five hundredfrancs without being a sou in debt; the husband is robbed every nightwith a high hand by escalade, but without burglarious breaking in.

IX.

*A married couple slept in the same bed; madame was always sick. Nowthey sleep apart, she has no more headache, and her health becomesmore brilliant than ever; an alarming symptom!

X.

A woman who was a sloven suddenly develops extreme nicety in herattire. There is a Minotaur at hand!

XI.

"Ah! my dear, I know no greater torment than not to be understood."

"Yes, my dear, but when one is--"

"Oh, that scarcely ever happens."

"I agree with you that it very seldom does. Ah! it is great happiness,but there are not two people in the world who are able to understandyou."

XII.

*The day when a wife behaves nicely to her husband--all is over.

XIII.

I asked her: "Where have you been, Jeanne?"

"I have been to your friend's to get your plate that you left there."

"Ah, indeed! everything is still mine," I said. The following year Irepeated the question under similar circumstances.

"I have been to bring back our plate."

"Well, well, part of the things are still mine," I said. But afterthat, when I questioned her, she spoke very differently.

"You wish to know everything, like great people, and you have onlythree shirts. I went to get my plate from my friend's house, where Ihad stopped."

"I see," I said, "nothing is left me."

XIV.

Do not trust a woman who talks of her virtue.

XV.

Some one said to the Duchess of Chaulnes, whose life was despaired of:

"The Duke of Chaulnes would like to see you once more."

"Is he there?"

"Yes."

"Let him wait; he shall come in with the sacraments." This minotauricanecdote has been published by Chamfort, but we quote it here astypical.

XVI.

*Some women try to persuade their husbands that they have duties toperform towards certain persons.

"I am sure that you ought to pay a visit to such and such a man. . . .We cannot avoid asking such and such a man to dinner."

XVII.

"Come, my son, hold yourself straight: try to acquire good manners!Watch such and such a man! See how he walks! Notice the way in whichhe dresses."

XVIII.

When a woman utters the name of a man but twice a day, there isperhaps some uncertainty about her feelings toward him--but if thrice?--Oh! oh!

XIX.

When a woman goes home with a man who is neither a lawyer nor aminister, to the door of his apartment, she is very imprudent.

XX.

It is a terrible day when a husband fails to explain to himself themotive of some action of his wife.

XXI.

*The woman who allows herself to be found out deserves her fate.

What should be the conduct of a husband, when he recognizes a lastsymptom which leaves no doubt as to the infidelity of his wife? Thereare only two courses open; that of resignation or that of vengeance;there is no third course. If vengeance is decided upon, it should becomplete.

The husband who does not separate himself forever from his wife is averitable simpleton. If a wife and husband think themselves fit forthat union of friendship which exists between men, it is odious in thehusband to make his wife feel his superiority over her.

Here are some anecdotes, most of them as yet unpublished, whichindicate pretty plainly, in my opinion, the different shades ofconduct to be observed by a husband in like case.

M. de Roquemont slept once a month in the chamber of his wife, and heused to say, as he went away:

"I wash my hands of anything that may happen."

There is something disgusting in that remark, and perhaps somethingprofound in its suggestion of conjugal policy.

A diplomat, when he saw his wife's lover enter, left his study and,going to his wife's chamber, said to the two:

"I hope you will at least refrain from fighting."

This was good humor.

M. de Boufflers was asked what he would do if on returning after along absence he found his wife with child?

"I would order my night dress and slippers to be taken to her room."

This was magnanimity.

"Madame, if this man ill treats you when you are alone, it is your ownfault; but I will not permit him to behave ill towards you in mypresence, for this is to fail in politeness in me."

This was nobility.

The sublime is reached in this connection when the square cap of thejudge is placed by the magistrate at the foot of the bed wherein thetwo culprits are asleep.

There are some fine ways of taking vengeance. Mirabeau has admirablydescribed in one of the books he wrote to make a living the mournfulresignation of that Italian lady who was condemned by her husband toperish with him in the Maremma.

LAST AXIOMS.

XCIII.

It is no act of vengeance to surprise a wife and her lover and to kill them locked in each other's arms; it is a great favor to them both.

XCIV.

A husband will be best avenged by his wife's lover.

MEDITATION XXVIII.

OF COMPENSATIONS.

The marital catastrophe which a certain number of husbands cannotavoid, almost always forms the closing scene of the drama. At thatpoint all around you is tranquil. Your resignation, if you areresigned, has the power of awakening keen remorse in the soul of yourwife and of her lover; for their happiness teaches them the depth ofthe wound they have inflicted upon you. You are, you may be sure, athird element in all their pleasures. The principle of kindliness andgoodness which lies at the foundation of the human soul, is not soeasily repressed as people think; moreover the two people who arecausing you tortures are precisely those for whom you wish the mostgood.

In the conversations so sweetly familiar which link together thepleasures of love, and form in some way to lovers the caresses ofthought, your wife often says to your rival:

"Well, I assure you, Auguste, that in any case I should like to see mypoor husband happy; for at bottom he is good; if he were not myhusband, but were only my brother, there are so many things I would doto please him! He loves me, and--his friendship is irksome to me."

"Yes, he is a fine fellow!"

Then you become an object of respect to the celibate, who would yieldto you all the indemnity possible for the wrong he has done you; buthe is repelled by the disdainful pride which gives a tone to yourwhole conversation, and is stamped upon your face.

So that actually, during the first moments of the Minotaur's arrival,a man is like an actor who feels awkward in a theatre where he is notaccustomed to appear. It is very difficult to bear the affront withdignity; but though generosity is rare, a model husband is sometimesfound to possess it.

Eventually you are little by little won over by the charming way inwhich your wife makes herself agreeable to you. Madame assumes a toneof friendship which she never henceforth abandons. The pleasantatmosphere of your home is one of the chief compensations whichrenders the Minotaur less odious to a husband. But as it is natural toman to habituate himself to the hardest conditions, in spite of thesentiment of outraged nobility which nothing can change, you aregradually induced by a fascination whose power is constantly aroundyou, to accept the little amenities of your position.

Suppose that conjugal misfortune has fallen upon an epicure. Henaturally demands the consolations which suit his taste. His sense ofpleasure takes refuge in other gratifications, and forms other habits.You shape your life in accordance with the enjoyment of othersensations.

One day, returning from your government office, after lingering for along time before the rich and tasteful book shop of Chevet, hoveringin suspense between the hundred francs of expense, and the joys of aStrasbourg pate de fois gras, you are struck dumb on finding thispate proudly installed on the sideboard of your dining-room. Is thisthe vision offered by some gastronomic mirage? In this doubting moodyou approach with firm step, for a pate is a living creature, andseem to neigh as you scent afar off the truffles whose perfumes escapethrough the gilded enclosure. You stoop over it two distinct times;all the nerve centres of your palate have a soul; you taste thedelights of a genuine feast, etc.; and during this ecstasy a feelingof remorse seizes upon you, and you go to your wife's room.

"Really, my dear girl, we have not means which warrant our buyingpates."

"But it costs us nothing!"

"Oh! ho!"

"Yes, it is M. Achille's brother who sent it to him."

You catch sight of M. Achille in a corner. The celibate greets you, heis radiant on seeing that you have accepted the pate. You look atyour wife, who blushes; you stroke your beard a few times; and, as youexpress no thanks, the two lovers divine your acceptance of thecompensation.

A sudden change in the ministry takes place. A husband, who isCouncillor of State, trembles for fear of being wiped from the roll,when the night before he had been made director-general; all theministers are opposed to him and he has turned Constitutionalist.Foreseeing his disgrace he has betaken himself to Auteuil, in searchof consolation from an old friend who quotes Horace and Tibullus tohim. On returning home he sees the table laid as if to receive themost influential men of the assembly.

"In truth, madame," he says with acrimony as he enters his wife'sroom, where she is finishing her toilette, "you seem to have lost yourhabitual tact. This is a nice time to be giving dinner parties! Twentypersons will soon learn--"

"That you are director-general!" she cries, showing him a royaldespatch.

He is thunderstruck. He takes the letter, he turns it now one way, nowanother; he opens it. He sits down and spreads it out.

"I well know," he says, "that justice would be rendered me underwhatever ministers I served."

"Yes, my dear! But M. Villeplaine has answered for you with his life,and his eminence the Cardinal de ----- of whom he is the--"

"M. de Villeplaine?"

This is such a munificent recompense, that the husband adds with thesmile of a director-general:

"Why, deuce take it, my dear, this is your doing!"

"Ah! don't thank me for it; Adolphe did it from personal attachment toyou."

On a certain evening a poor husband was kept at home by a pouringrain, or tired, perhaps, of going to spend his evening in play, at thecafe, or in the world, and sick of all this he felt himself carriedaway by an impulse to follow his wife to the conjugal chamber. Therehe sank into an arm-chair and like any sultan awaited his coffee, asif he would say:

"Well, after all, she is my wife!"

The fair siren herself prepares the favorite draught; she strains itwith special care, sweetens it, tastes it, and hands it to him; then,with a smile, she ventures like a submissive odalisque to make a joke,with a view to smoothing the wrinkles on the brow of her lord andmaster. Up to that moment he had thought his wife stupid; but onhearing a sally as witty as that which even you would cajole with,madame, he raises his head in the way peculiar to dogs who are huntingthe hare.

"Where the devil did she get that--but it's a random shot!" he says tohimself.

From the pinnacle of his own greatness he makes a piquant repartee.Madame retorts, the conversation becomes as lively as it isinteresting, and this husband, a very superior man, is quiteastonished to discover the wit of his wife, in other respects, anaccomplished woman; the right word occurs to her with wonderfulreadiness; her tact and keenness enable her to meet an innuendo withcharming originality. She is no longer the same woman. She notices theeffect she produces upon her husband, and both to avenge herself forhis neglect and to win his admiration for the lover from whom she hasreceived, so to speak, the treasures of her intellect, she exertsherself, and becomes actually dazzling. The husband, better able thanany one else to appreciate a species of compensation which may havesome influence on his future, is led to think that the passions ofwomen are really necessary to their mental culture.

But how shall we treat those compensations which are most pleasing tohusbands?

Between the moment when the last symptoms appear, and the epoch ofconjugal peace, which we will not stop to discuss, almost a dozenyears have elapsed. During this interval and before the married couplesign the treaty which, by means of a sincere reconciliation of thefeminine subject with her lawful lord, consecrates their littlematrimonial restoration, in order to close in, as Louis XVIII said,the gulf of revolutions, it is seldom that the honest woman has butone lover. Anarchy has its inevitable phases. The stormy domination oftribunes is supplanted by that of the sword and the pen, for few lovesare met with whose constancy outlives ten years. Therefore, since ourcalculations prove that an honest woman has merely paid strictly herphysiological or diabolical dues by rendering but three men happy, itis probable that she has set foot in more than one region of love.Sometimes it may happen that in an interregnum of love too longprotracted, the wife, whether from whim, temptation or the desire ofnovelty, undertakes to seduce her own husband.

Imagine charming Mme. de T-----, the heroine of our Meditation ofStrategy, saying with a fascinating smile:

"I never before found you so agreeable!"

By flattery after flattery, she tempts, she rouses curiosity, shesoothes, she rouses in you the faintest spark of desire, she carriesyou away with her, and makes you proud of yourself. Then the right ofindemnifications for her husband comes. On this occasion the wifeconfounds the imagination of her husband. Like cosmopolitan travelersshe tells tales of all the countries which she had traversed. Sheintersperses her conversation with words borrowed from severallanguages. The passionate imagery of the Orient, the unique emphasisof Spanish phraseology, all meet and jostle one another. She opens outthe treasures of her notebook with all the mysteries of coquetry, sheis delightful, you never saw her thus before! With that remarkable artwhich women alone possess of making their own everything that has beentold them, she blends all shades and variations of character so as tocreate a manner peculiarly her own. You received from the hands ofHymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you adozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded bythe giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation onThe First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile andsport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. ThePhoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself toand fro; the Chalcidian woman overcomes you by the witchery of herfine and snowy feet; the Unelmane comes and speaking the dialect offair Ionia reveals the treasures of happiness unknown before, and inthe study of which she makes you experience but a single sensation.

Filled with regret at having disdained so many charms, and frequentlytired of finding too often as much perfidiousness in priestesses ofVenus as in honest women, the husband sometimes hurries on by hisgallantry the hour of reconciliation desired of worthy people. Theaftermath of bliss is gathered even with greater pleasure, perhaps,than the first crop. The Minotaur took your gold, he makes restorationin diamonds. And really now seems the time to state a fact of theutmost importance. A man may have a wife without possessing her. Likemost husbands you had hitherto received nothing from yours, and thepowerful intervention of the celibate was needed to make your unioncomplete. How shall we give a name to this miracle, perhaps the onlyone wrought upon a patient during his absence? Alas, my brothers, wedid not make Nature!

But how many other compensations, not less precious, are there, bywhich the noble and generous soul of the young celibate may many atime purchase his pardon! I recollect witnessing one of the mostmagnificent acts of reparation which a lover should perform toward thehusband he is minotaurizing.

One warm evening in the summer of 1817, I saw entering one of therooms of Tortoni one of the two hundred young men whom we confidentlystyle our friends; he was in the full bloom of his modesty. A lovelywoman, dressed in perfect taste, and who had consented to enter one ofthe cool parlors devoted to people of fashion, had stepped from anelegant carriage which had stopped on the boulevard, and wasapproaching on foot along the sidewalk. My young friend, the celibate,then appeared and offered his arm to his queen, while the husbandfollowed holding by the hand two little boys, beautiful as cupids. Thetwo lovers, more nimble than the father of the family, reached inadvance of him one of the small rooms pointed out by the attendant. Incrossing the vestibule the husband knocked up against some dandy, whoclaimed that he had been jostled. Then arose a quarrel, whoseseriousness was betrayed by the sharp tones of the altercation. Themoment the dandy was about to make a gesture unworthy of aself-respecting man, the celibate intervened, seized the dandy by thearm, caught him off his guard, overcame and threw him to the ground;itwas magnificent. He had done the very thing the aggressor wasmeditating, as he exclaimed:

"Monsieur!"

This "Monsieur" was one of the finest things I have ever heard. It wasas if the young celibate had said: "This father of a family belongs tome; as I have carried off his honor, it is mine to defend him. I knowmy duty, I am his substitute and will fight for him." The young womanbehaved superbly! Pale, and bewildered, she took the arm of herhusband, who continued his objurgations; without a word she led himaway to the carriage, together with her children. She was one of thosewomen of the aristocracy, who also know how to retain their dignityand self-control in the midst of violent emotions.

"O Monsieur Adolphe!" cried the young lady as she saw her friend withan air of gayety take his seat in the carriage.

"It is nothing, madame, he is one of my friends; we have shakenhands."

Nevertheless, the next morning, the courageous celibate received asword thrust which nearly proved fatal, and confined him six months tohis bed. The attentions of the married couple were lavished upon him.What numerous compensations do we see here! Some years afterwards, anold uncle of the husband, whose opinions did not fit in with those ofthe young friend of the house, and who nursed a grudge against him onaccount of some political discussion, undertook to have him drivenfrom the house. The old fellow went so far as to tell his nephew tochoose between being his heir and sending away the presumptuouscelibate. It was then that the worthy stockbroker said to his uncle:

"Ah, you must never think, uncle, that you will succeed in making meungrateful! But if I tell him to do so this young man will let himselfbe killed for you. He has saved my credit, he would go through fireand water for me, he has relieved me of my wife, he has brought meclients, he has procured for me almost all the business in the Villeleloans--I owe my life to him, he is the father of my children; I cannever forget all this."

In this case the compensations may be looked upon as complete; butunfortunately there are compensations of all kinds. There are thosewhich must be considered negative, deluding, and those which are bothin one.

I knew a husband of advanced years who was possessed by the demon ofgambling. Almost every evening his wife's lover came and played withhim. The celibate gave him a liberal share of the pleasures which comefrom games of hazard, and knew how to lose to him a certain number offrancs every month; but madame used to give them to him, and thecompensation was a deluding one.

You are a peer of France, and you have no offspring but daughters.Your wife is brought to bed of a boy! The compensation is negative.

The child who is to save your name from oblivion is like his mother.The duchess persuades you that the child is yours. The negativecompensation becomes deluding.

Here is one of the most charming compensations known. One morning thePrince de Ligne meets his wife's lover and rushes up to him, laughingwildly:

"My friend," he says to him, "I cuckolded you, last night!"

If some husbands attain to conjugal peace by quiet methods, and carryso gracefully the imaginary ensigns of matrimonial pre-eminence, theirphilosophy is doubtless based on the comfortabilisme of acceptingcertain compensations, a comfortabilisme which indifferent mencannot imagine. As years roll by the married couple reach the laststage in that artificial existence to which their union has condemnedthem.

MEDITATION XXIX.

OF CONJUGAL PEACE.

My imagination has followed marriage through all the phases of itsfantastic life in so fraternal a spirit, that I seem to have grown oldwith the house I made my home so early in life at the commencement ofthis work.

After experiencing in thought the ardor of man's first passion; andoutlining, in however imperfect a way, the principal incidents ofmarried life; after struggling against so many wives that did notbelong to me, exhausting myself in conflict with so many personagescalled up from nothingness, and joining so many battles, I feel anintellectual lassitude, which makes me see everything in life hang, asit were, in mournful crape. I seem to have a catarrh, to look ateverything through green spectacles, I feel as if my hands trembled,as if I must needs employ the second half of my existence and of mybook in apologizing for the follies of the first half.

I see myself surrounded by tall children of whom I am not the father,and seated beside a wife I never married. I think I can feel wrinklesfurrowing my brow. The fire before which I am placed crackles, as ifin derision, the room is ancient in its furniture; I shudder withsudden fright as I lay my hand upon my heart, and ask myself: "Isthat, too, withered?"

I am like an old attorney, unswayed by any sentiment whatever. I neveraccept any statement unless it be confirmed, according to the poeticmaxim of Lord Byron, by the testimony of at least two false witnesses.No face can delude me. I am melancholy and overcast with gloom. I knowthe world and it has no more illusions for me. My closest friends haveproved traitors. My wife and myself exchange glances of profoundmeaning and the slightest word either of us utters is a dagger whichpierces the heart of the other through and through. I stagnate in adreary calm. This then is the tranquillity of old age! The old manpossesses in himself the cemetery which shall soon possess him. He isgrowing accustomed to the chill of the tomb. Man, according tophilosophers, dies in detail; at the same time he may be said even tocheat death; for that which his withered hand has laid hold upon, canit be called life?

Oh, to die young and throbbing with life! 'Tis a destiny enviableindeed! For is not this, as a delightful poet has said, "to take awaywith one all one's illusions, to be buried like an Eastern king, withall one's jewels and treasures, with all that makes the fortune ofhumanity!"

How many thank-offerings ought we to make to the kind and beneficentspirit that breathes in all things here below! Indeed, the care whichnature takes to strip us piece by piece of our raiment, to unclothethe soul by enfeebling gradually our hearing, sight, and sense oftouch, in making slower the circulation of our blood, and congealingour humors so as to make us as insensible to the approach of death aswe were to the beginnings of life, this maternal care which shelavishes on our frail tabernacle of clay, she also exhibits in regardto the emotions of man, and to the double existence which is createdby conjugal love. She first sends us Confidence, which with extendedhand and open heart says to us: "Behold, I am thine forever!"Lukewarmness follows, walking with languid tread, turning aside herblonde face with a yawn, like a young widow obliged to listen to theminister of state who is ready to sign for her a pension warrant. ThenIndifference comes; she stretches herself on the divan, taking no careto draw down the skirts of her robe which Desire but now lifted sochastely and so eagerly. She casts a glance upon the nuptial bed, withmodesty and without shamelessness; and, if she longs for anything, itis for the green fruit that calls up again to life the dulled papillaewith which her blase palate is bestrewn. Finally the philosophicalExperience of Life presents herself, with careworn and disdainfulbrow, pointing with her finger to the results, and not the causes oflife's incidents; to the tranquil victory, not to the tempestuouscombat. She reckons up the arrearages, with farmers, and calculatesthe dowry of a child. She materializes everything. By a touch of herwand, life becomes solid and springless; of yore, all was fluid, nowit is crystallized into rock. Delight no longer exists for our hearts,it has received its sentence, 'twas but mere sensation, a passingparoxysm. What the soul desires to-day is a condition of fixity; andhappiness alone is permanent, and consists in absolute tranquillity,in the regularity with which eating and sleeping succeed each other,and the sluggish organs perform their functions.

"This is horrible!" I cried; "I am young and full of life! Perish allthe books in the world rather than my illusions should perish!"

I left my laboratory and plunged into the whirl of Paris. As I saw thefairest faces glide by before me, I felt that I was not old. The firstyoung woman who appeared before me, lovely in face and form anddressed to perfection, with one glance of fire made all the sorcerywhose spells I had voluntarily submitted to vanish into thin air.Scarcely had I walked three steps in the Tuileries gardens, the placewhich I had chosen as my destination, before I saw the prototype ofthe matrimonial situation which has last been described in this book.Had I desired to characterize, to idealize, to personify marriage, asI conceived it to be, it would have been impossible for the Creatorhimself to have produced so complete a symbol of it as I then sawbefore me.

Imagine a woman of fifty, dressed in a jacket of reddish brown merino,holding in her left hand a green cord, which was tied to the collar ofan English terrier, and with her right arm linked with that of a manin knee-breeches and silk stockings, whose hat had its brimwhimsically turned up, while snow-white tufts of hair like pigeonplumes rose at its sides. A slender queue, thin as a quill, tossedabout on the back of his sallow neck, which was thick, as far as itcould be seen above the turned down collar of a threadbare coat. Thiscouple assumed the stately tread of an ambassador; and the husband,who was at least seventy, stopped complaisantly every time the terrierbegan to gambol. I hastened to pass this living impersonation of myMeditation, and was surprised to the last degree to recognize theMarquis de T-----, friend of the Comte de Noce, who had owed me for along time the end of the interrupted story which I related in theTheory of the Bed. [See Meditation XVII.]

"I have the honor to present to you the Marquise de T-----," he saidto me.

I made a low bow to a lady whose face was pale and wrinkled; herforehead was surmounted by a toupee, whose flattened ringlets, rangedaround it, deceived no one, but only emphasized, instead ofconcealing, the wrinkles by which it was deeply furrowed. The lady wasslightly roughed, and had the appearance of an old country actress.

"I do not see, sir, what you can say against a marriage such as ours,"said the old man to me.

"The laws of Rome forefend!" I cried, laughing.

The marchioness gave me a look filled with inquietude as well asdisapprobation, which seemed to say, "Is it possible that at my age Ihave become but a concubine?"

We sat down upon a bench, in the gloomy clump of trees planted at thecorner of the high terrace which commands La Place Louis XV, on theside of the Garde-Meuble. Autumn had already begun to strip the treesof their foliage, and was scattering before our eyes the yellow leavesof his garland; but the sun nevertheless filled the air with gratefulwarmth.

"Well, is your work finished?" asked the old man, in the unctuoustones peculiar to men of the ancient aristocracy.

And with these words he gave a sardonic smile, as if for commentary.

"Very nearly, sir," I replied. "I have come to the philosophicsituation, which you appear to have reached, but I confess that I--"

"You are searching for ideas?" he added--finishing for me a sentence,which I confess I did not know how to end.

"Well," he continued, "you may boldly assume, that on arriving at thewinter of his life, a man--a man who thinks, I mean--ends by denyingthat love has any existence, in the wild form with which our illusionsinvested it!"

"What! would you deny the existence of love on the day after that ofmarriage?"

"In the first place, the day after would be the very reason; but mymarriage was a commercial speculation," replied he, stooping to speakinto my ear. "I have thereby purchased the care, the attention, theservices which I need; and I am certain to obtain all theconsideration my age demands; for I have willed all my property to mynephew, and as my wife will be rich only during my life, you canimagine how--"

I turned on the old marquis a look so piercing that he wrung my handand said: "You seem to have a good heart, for nothing is certain inthis life--"

"Well, you may be sure that I have arranged a pleasant surprise forher in my will," he replied, gayly.

"Come here, Joseph," cried the marchioness, approaching a servant whocarried an overcoat lined with silk. "The marquis is probably feelingthe cold."

The old marquis put on his overcoat, buttoned it up, and taking myarm, led me to the sunny side of the terrace.

"In your work," he continued, "you have doubtless spoken of the loveof a young man. Well, if you wish to act up to the scope which yougive to your work--in the word ec--elec--"

"Eclectic," I said, smiling, seeing he could not remember thisphilosophic term.

"I know the word well!" he replied. "If then you wish to keep your vowof eclecticism, you should be willing to express certain virile ideason the subject of love which I will communicate to you, and I will notgrudge you the benefit of them, if benefit there be; I wish tobequeath my property to you, but this will be all that you will get ofit."

"There is no money fortune which is worth as much as a fortune ofideas if they be valuable ideas! I shall, therefore, listen to youwith a grateful mind."

"There is no such thing as love," pursued the old man, fixing his gazeupon me. "It is not even a sentiment, it is an unhappy necessity,which is midway between the needs of the body and those of the soul.But siding for a moment with your youthful thoughts, let us try toreason upon this social malady. I suppose that you can only conceiveof love as either a need or a sentiment."

I made a sign of assent.

"Considered as a need," said the old man, "love makes itself felt lastof all our needs, and is the first to cease. We are inclined to lovein our twentieth year, to speak in round numbers, and we cease to doso at fifty. During these thirty years, how often would the need befelt, if it were not for the provocation of city manners, and themodern custom of living in the presence of not one woman, but of womenin general? What is our debt to the perpetuation of the race? Itprobably consists in producing as many children as we have breasts--sothat if one dies the other may live. If these two children were alwaysfaithfully produced, what would become of nations? Thirty millions ofpeople would constitute a population too great for France, for thesoil is not sufficient to guarantee more than ten millions againstmisery and hunger. Remember that China is reduced to the expedient ofthrowing its children into the water, according to the accounts oftravelers. Now this production of two children is really the whole ofmarriage. The superfluous pleasures of marriage are not onlyprofligate, but involve an immense loss to the man, as I will nowdemonstrate. Compare then with this poverty of result, and shortnessof duration, the daily and perpetual urgency of other needs of ourexistence. Nature reminds us every hour of our real needs; and, on theother hand, refuses absolutely to grant the excess which ourimagination sometimes craves in love. It is, therefore, the last ofour needs, and the only one which may be forgotten without causing anydisturbance in the economy of the body. Love is a social luxury likelace and diamonds. But if we analyze it as a sentiment, we find twodistinct elements in it; namely, pleasure and passion. Now analyzepleasure. Human affections rest upon two foundations, attraction andrepulsion. Attraction is a universal feeling for those things whichflatter our instinct of self-preservation; repulsion is the exerciseof the same instinct when it tells us that something is near whichthreatens it with injury. Everything which profoundly moves ourorganization gives us a deeper sense of our existence; such a thing ispleasure. It is contracted of desire, of effort, and the joy ofpossessing something or other. Pleasure is a unique element in life,and our passions are nothing but modifications, more or less keen, ofpleasure; moreover, familiarity with one pleasure almost alwaysprecludes the enjoyment of all others. Now, love is the least keen andthe least durable of our pleasures. In what would you say the pleasureof love consists? Does it lie in the beauty of the beloved? In oneevening you may obtain for money the loveliest odalisques; but at theend of a month you will in this way have burnt out all your sentimentfor all time. Would you love a women because she is well dressed,elegant, rich, keeps a carriage, has commercial credit? Do not callthis love, for it is vanity, avarice, egotism. Do you love her becauseshe is intellectual? You are in that case merely obeying the dictatesof literary sentiment."

"But," I said, "love only reveals its pleasures to those who mingle inone their thoughts, their fortunes, their sentiments, their souls,their lives--"

"Oh dear, dear!" cried the old man, in a jeering tone. "Can you showme five men in any nation who have sacrificed anything for a woman? Ido not say their life, for that is a slight thing,--the price of ahuman life under Napoleon was never more than twenty thousand francs;and there are in France to-day two hundred and fifty thousand bravemen who would give theirs for two inches of red ribbon; while sevenmen have sacrificed for a woman ten millions on which they might haveslept in solitude for a whole night. Dubreuil and Phmeja are stillrarer than is the love of Dupris and Bolingbroke. These sentimentsproceed from an unknown cause. But you have brought me thus toconsider love as a passion. Yes, indeed, it is the last of them alland the most contemptible. It promises everything, and fulfilsnothing. It comes, like love, as a need, the last, and dies away thefirst. Ah, talk to me of revenge, hatred, avarice, of gaming, ofambition, of fanaticism. These passions have something virile in them;these sentiments are imperishable; they make sacrifices every day,such as love only makes by fits and starts. But," he went on, "supposeyou abjure love. At first there will be no disquietudes, no anxieties,no worry, none of those little vexations that waste human life. A manlives happy and tranquil; in his social relations he becomesinfinitely more powerful and influential. This divorce from the thingcalled love is the primary secret of power in all men who controllarge bodies of men; but this is a mere trifle. Ah! if you knew withwhat magic influence a man is endowed, what wealth of intellectualforce, what longevity in physical strength he enjoys, when detachinghimself from every species of human passion he spends all his energyto the profit of his soul! If you could enjoy for two minutes theriches which God dispenses to the enlightened men who consider love asmerely a passing need which it is sufficient to satisfy for six monthsin their twentieth year; to the men who, scorning the luxurious andsurfeiting beefsteaks of Normandy, feed on the roots which God hasgiven in abundance, and take their repose on a bed of withered leaves,like the recluses of the Thebaid!--ah! you would not keep on threeseconds the wool of fifteen merinos which covers you; you would flingaway your childish switch, and go to live in the heaven of heavens!There you would find the love you sought in vain amid the swine ofearth; there you would hear a concert of somewhat different melodyfrom that of M. Rossini, voices more faultless than that of Malibran.But I am speaking as a blind man might, and repeating hearsays. If Ihad not visited Germany about the year 1791, I should know nothing ofall this. Yes!--man has a vocation for the infinite. There dwellswithin him an instinct that calls him to God. God is all, gives all,brings oblivion on all, and thought is the thread which he has givenus as a clue to communication with himself!"

He suddenly stopped, and fixed his eyes upon the heavens.

"The poor fellow has lost his wits!" I thought to myself.

"Sir," I said to him, "it would be pushing my devotion to eclecticphilosophy too far to insert your ideas in my book; they would destroyit. Everything in it is based on love, platonic and sensual. Godforbid that I should end my book by such social blasphemies! I wouldrather try to return by some pantagruelian subtlety to my herd ofcelibates and honest women, with many an attempt to discover somesocial utility in their passions and follies. Oh! if conjugal peaceleads us to arguments so disillusionizing and so gloomy as these, Iknow a great many husbands who would prefer war to peace."

"At any rate, young man," the old marquis cried, "I shall never haveto reproach myself with refusing to give true directions to a travelerwho had lost his way."

"Adieu, thou old carcase!" I said to myself; "adieu, thou walkingmarriage! Adieu, thou stick of a burnt-out fire-work! Adieu, thoumachine! Although I have given thee from time to time some glimpses ofpeople dear to me, old family portraits,--back with you to the picturedealer's shop, to Madame de T-----, and all the rest of them; takeyour place round the bier with undertaker's mutes, for all I care!"

MEDITATION XXX.

CONCLUSION.

A recluse, who was credited with the gift of second sight, havingcommanded the children of Israel to follow him to a mountain top inorder to hear the revelation of certain mysteries, saw that he wasaccompanied by a crowd which took up so much room on the road that,prophet as he was, his amour-propre was vastly tickled.

But as the mountain was a considerable distance off, it happened thatat the first halt, an artisan remembered that he had to deliver a newpair of slippers to a duke and peer, a publican fell to thinking howhe had some specie to negotiate, and off they went.

A little further on two lovers lingered under the olive trees andforgot the discourse of the prophet; for they thought that thepromised land was the spot where they stood, and the divine word washeard when they talked to one another.

The fat people, loaded with punches a la Sancho, had been wiping theirforeheads with their handkerchiefs, for the last quarter of an hour,and began to grow thirsty, and therefore halted beside a clear spring.

Certain retired soldiers complained of the corns which tortured them,and spoke of Austerlitz, and of their tight boots.

At the second halt, certain men of the world whispered together:

"But this prophet is a fool."

"Have you ever heard him?"

"I? I came from sheer curiosity."

"And I because I saw the fellow had a large following." (The last manwho spoke was a fashionable.)

"He is a mere charlatan."

The prophet kept marching on. But when he reached the plateau, fromwhich a wide horizon spread before him, he turned back, and saw no onebut a poor Israelite, to whom he might have said as the Prince deLigne to the wretched little bandy-legged drummer boy, whom he foundon the spot where he expected to see a whole garrison awaiting him:"Well, my readers, it seems that you have dwindled down to one."

Thou man of God who has followed me so far--I hope that a shortrecapitulation will not terrify thee, and I have traveled on under theimpression that thou, like me, hast kept saying to thyself, "Where thedeuce are we going?"

Well, well, this is the place and the time to ask you, respectedreader, what your opinion is with regard to the renewal of the tobaccomonopoly, and what you think of the exorbitant taxes on wines, on theright to carry firearms, on gaming, on lotteries, on playing cards, onbrandy, on soap, cotton, silks, etc.

"I think that since all these duties make up one-third of the publicrevenues, we should be seriously embarrassed if--"

So that, my excellent model husband, if no one got drunk, or gambled,or smoked, or hunted, in a word if we had neither vices, passions, normaladies in France, the State would be within an ace of bankruptcy;for it seems that the capital of our national income consists ofpopular corruptions, as our commerce is kept alive by national luxury.If you cared to look a little closer into the matter you would seethat all taxes are based upon some moral malady. As a matter of fact,if we continue this philosophical scrutiny it will appear that thegendarmes would want horses and leather breeches, if every one keptthe peace, and if there were neither foes nor idle people in theworld. Therefore impose virtue on mankind! Well, I consider that thereare more parallels than people think between my honest woman and thebudget, and I will undertake to prove this by a short essay onstatistics, if you will permit me to finish my book on the same linesas those on which I have begun it. Will you grant that a lover mustput on more clean shirts than are worn by either a husband, or acelibate unattached? This to me seems beyond doubt. The differencebetween a husband and a lover is seen even in the appearance of theirtoilette. The one is careless, he is unshaved, and the other neverappears excepting in full dress. Sterne has pleasantly remarked thatthe account book of the laundress was the most authentic record heknew, as to the life of Tristram Shandy; and that it was easy to guessfrom the number of shirts he wore what passages of his book had costhim most. Well, with regard to lovers the account book of theirlaundresses is the most faithful historic record as well as the mostimpartial account of their various amours. And really a prodigiousquantity of tippets, cravats, dresses, which are absolutely necessaryto coquetry, is consumed in the course of an amour. A wonderfulprestige is gained by white stockings, the lustre of a collar, or ashirt-waist, the artistically arranged folds of a man's shirt, or thetaste of his necktie or his collar. This will explain the passages inwhich I said of the honest woman [Meditation II], "She spends her lifein having her dresses starched." I have sought information on thispoint from a lady in order to learn accurately at what sum was to beestimated the tax thus imposed by love, and after fixing it at onehundred francs per annum for a woman, I recollect what she said withgreat good humor: "It depends on the character of the man, for someare so much more particular than others." Nevertheless, after a veryprofound discussion, in which I settled upon the sum for thecelibates, and she for her sex, it was agreed that, one thing withanother, since the two lovers belong to the social sphere which thiswork concerns, they ought to spend between them, in the matterreferred to, one hundred and fifty francs more than in time of peace.

By a like treaty, friendly in character and long discussed, wearranged that there should be a collective difference of four hundredfrancs between the expenditure for all parts of the dress on a warfooting, and for that on a peace footing. This provision wasconsidered very paltry by all the powers, masculine or feminine, whomwe consulted. The light thrown upon these delicate matters by thecontributions of certain persons suggested to us the idea of gatheringtogether certain savants at a dinner party, and taking their wisecounsels for our guidance in these important investigations. Thegathering took place. It was with glass in hand and after listening tomany brilliant speeches that I received for the following chapters onthe budget of love, a sort of legislative sanction. The sum of onehundred francs was allowed for porters and carriages. Fifty crownsseemed very reasonable for the little patties that people eat on awalk, for bouquets of violets and theatre tickets. The sum of twohundred francs was considered necessary for the extra expense ofdainties and dinners at restaurants. It was during this discussionthat a young cavalryman, who had been made almost tipsy by thechampagne, was called to order for comparing lovers to distillingmachines. But the chapter that gave occasion for the most violentdiscussion, and the consideration of which was adjourned for severalweeks, when a report was made, was that concerning presents. At thelast session, the refined Madame de D----- was the first speaker; andin a graceful address, which testified to the nobility of hersentiments, she set out to demonstrate that most of the time the giftsof love had no intrinsic value. The author replied that all lovers hadtheir portraits taken. A lady objected that a portrait was investedcapital, and care should always be taken to recover it for a secondinvestment. But suddenly a gentleman of Provence rose to deliver aphilippic against women. He spoke of the greediness which most womenin love exhibited for furs, satins, silks, jewels and furniture; but alady interrupted him by asking if Madame d'O-----y, his intimatefriend, had not already paid his debts twice over.

"You are mistaken, madame," said the Provencal, "it was her husband."

"The speaker is called to order," cried the president, "and condemnedto dine the whole party, for having used the word husband."

The Provencal was completely refuted by a lady who undertook to provethat women show much more self-sacrifice in love than men; that loverscost very dear, and that the honest woman may consider herself veryfortunate if she gets off with spending on them two thousand francsfor a single year. The discussion was in danger of degenerating intoan exchange of personalities, when a division was called for. Theconclusions of the committee were adopted by vote. The conclusionswere, in substance, that the amount for presents between lovers duringthe year should be reckoned at five hundred francs, but that in thiscomputation should be included: (1) the expense of expeditions intothe country; (2) the pharmaceutical expenses, occasioned by the coldscaught from walking in the damp pathways of parks, and in leaving thetheatre, which expenses are veritable presents; (3) the carrying ofletters, and law expenses; (4) journeys, and expenses whose items areforgotten, without counting the follies committed by the spenders;inasmuch as, according to the investigations of the committee, it hadbeen proved that most of a man's extravagant expenditure profited theopera girls, rather than the married women. The conclusion arrived atfrom this pecuniary calculation was that, in one way or another, apassion costs nearly fifteen hundred francs a year, which wererequired to meet the expense borne more unequally by lovers, but whichwould not have occurred, but for their attachment. There was also asort of unanimity in the opinion of the council that this was thelowest annual figure which would cover the cost of a passion. Now, mydear sir, since we have proved, by the statistics of our conjugalcalculations [See Meditations I, II, and III.] and provedirrefragably, that there exists a floating total of at least fifteenhundred thousand unlawful passions, it follows:

That the criminal conversations of a third among the French populationcontribute a sum of nearly three thousand millions to that vastcirculation of money, the true blood of society, of which the budgetis the heart;

That the honest woman not only gives life to the children of thepeerage, but also to its financial funds;

That manufacturers owe their prosperity to this systolic movement;

That the honest woman is a being essentially budgetative, and activeas a consumer;

That the least decline in public love would involve incalculablemiseries to the treasury, and to men of invested fortunes;

That a husband has at least a third of his fortune invested in theinconstancy of his wife, etc.

I am well aware that you are going to open your mouth and talk to meabout manners, politics, good and evil. But, my dear victim of theMinotaur, is not happiness the object which all societies should setbefore them? Is it not this axiom that makes these wretched kings givethemselves so much trouble about their people? Well, the honest womanhas not, like them, thrones, gendarmes and tribunals; she has only abed to offer; but if our four hundred thousand women can, by thisingenious machine, make a million celibates happy, do not they attainin a mysterious manner, and without making any fuss, the end aimed atby a government, namely, the end of giving the largest possible amountof happiness to the mass of mankind?

"Yes, but the annoyances, the children, the troubles--"

Ah, you must permit me to proffer the consolatory thought with whichone of our wittiest caricaturists closes his satiric observations:"Man is not perfect!" It is sufficient, therefore, that ourinstitutions have no more disadvantages than advantages in order to bereckoned excellent; for the human race is not placed, sociallyspeaking, between the good and the bad, but between the bad and theworse. Now if the work, which we are at present on the point ofconcluding, has had for its object the diminution of the worse, as itis found in matrimonial institutions, in laying bare the errors andabsurdities due to our manners and our prejudices, we shall certainlyhave won one of the fairest titles that can be put forth by a man to aplace among the benefactors of humanity. Has not the author made ithis aim, by advising husbands, to make women more self-restrained andconsequently to impart more violence to passions, more money to thetreasury, more life to commerce and agriculture? Thanks to this lastMeditation he can flatter himself that he has strictly kept the vow ofeclecticism, which he made in projecting the work, and he hopes he hasmarshaled all details of the case, and yet like an attorney-generalrefrained from expressing his personal opinion. And really what do youwant with an axiom in the present matter? Do you wish that this bookshould be a mere development of the last opinion held by Tronchet, whoin his closing days thought that the law of marriage had been drawn upless in the interest of husbands than of children? I also wish it verymuch. Would you rather desire that this book should serve as proof tothe peroration of the Capuchin, who preached before Anne of Austria,and when he saw the queen and her ladies overwhelmed by his triumphantarguments against their frailty, said as he came down from the pulpitof truth, "Now you are all honorable women, and it is we whounfortunately are sons of Samaritan women"? I have no objection tothat either. You may draw what conclusion you please; for I think itis very difficult to put forth two contrary opinions, without both ofthem containing some grains of truth. But the book has not beenwritten either for or against marriage; all I have thought you neededwas an exact description of it. If an examination of the machine shalllead us to make one wheel of it more perfect; if by scouring away somerust we have given more elastic movement to its mechanism; then givehis wage to the workman. If the author has had the impertinence toutter truths too harsh for you, if he has too often spoken of rare andexceptional facts as universal, if he has omitted the commonplaceswhich have been employed from time immemorial to offer women theincense of flattery, oh, let him be crucified! But do not impute tohim any motive of hostility to the institution itself; he is concernedmerely for men and women. He knows that from the moment marriageceases to defeat the purpose of marriage, it is unassailable; and,after all, if there do arise serious complaints against thisinstitution, it is perhaps because man has no memory excepting for hisdisasters, that he accuses his wife, as he accuses his life, formarriage is but a life within a life. Yet people whose habit it is totake their opinions from newspapers would perhaps despise a book inwhich they see the mania of eclecticism pushed too far; for then theyabsolutely demand something in the shape of a peroration, it is nothard to find one for them. And since the words of Napoleon served tostart this book, why should it not end as it began? Before the wholeCouncil of State the First Consul pronounced the following startlingphrase, in which he at the same time eulogized and satirized marriage,and summed up the contents of this book:

"If a man never grew old, I would never wish him to have a wife!"

POSTSCRIPT.

"And so you are going to be married?" asked the duchess of the authorwho had read his manuscript to her.

She was one of those ladies to whom the author has already paid hisrespects in the introduction of this work.

"Certainly, madame," I replied. "To meet a woman who has courageenough to become mine, would satisfy the wildest of my hopes."

"Is this resignation or infatuation?"

"That is my affair."

"Well, sir, as you are doctor of conjugal arts and sciences, allow meto tell you a little Oriental fable, that I read in a certain sheet,which is published annually in the form of an almanac. At thebeginning of the Empire ladies used to play at a game in which no oneaccepted a present from his or her partner in the game, without sayingthe word, Diadeste. A game lasted, as you may well suppose, during aweek, and the point was to catch some one receiving some trifle orother without pronouncing the sacramental word."

"Even a kiss?"

"Oh, I have won the Diadeste twenty times in that way," shelaughingly replied.

"It was, I believe, from the playing of this game, whose origin isArabian or Chinese, that my apologue takes its point. But if I tellyou," she went on, putting her finger to her nose, with a charming airof coquetry, "let me contribute it as a finale to your work."

"This would indeed enrich me. You have done me so many favors already,that I cannot repay--"

She smiled slyly, and replied as follows:

A philosopher had compiled a full account of all the tricks that womencould possibly play, and in order to verify it, he always carried itabout with him. One day he found himself in the course of his travelsnear an encampment of Arabs. A young woman, who had seated herselfunder the shade of a palm tree, rose on his approach. She kindly askedhim to rest himself in her tent, and he could not refuse. Her husbandwas then absent. Scarcely had the traveler seated himself on a softrug, when the graceful hostess offered him fresh dates, and a cup ofmilk; he could not help observing the rare beauty of her hands as shedid so. But, in order to distract his mind from the sensations rousedin him by the fair young Arabian girl, whose charms were mostformidable, the sage took his book, and began to read.

The seductive creature piqued by this slight said to him in amelodious voice:

"That book must be very interesting since it seems to be the soleobject worthy of your attention. Would it be taking a liberty to askwhat science it treats of?"

The philosopher kept his eyes lowered as he replied:

"The subject of this book is beyond the comprehension of ladies."

This rebuff excited more than ever the curiosity of the young Arabianwoman. She put out the prettiest little foot that had ever left itsfleeting imprint on the shifting sands of the desert. The philosopherwas perturbed, and his eyes were too powerfully tempted to resistwandering from these feet, which betokened so much, up to the bosom,which was still more ravishingly fair; and soon the flame of hisadmiring glance was mingled with the fire that sparkled in the pupilsof the young Asiatic. She asked again the name of the book in tones sosweet that the philosopher yielded to the fascination, and replied:

"I am the author of the book; but the substance of it is not mine: itcontains an account of all the ruses and stratagems of women."

"What! Absolutely all?" said the daughter of the desert.

"Yes, all! And it has been only by a constant study of womankind thatI have come to regard them without fear."

"Ah!" said the young Arabian girl, lowering the long lashes of herwhite eyelids.

Then, suddenly darting the keenest of her glances at the pretendedsage, she made him in one instant forget the book and all itscontents. And now our philosopher was changed to the most passionateof men. Thinking he saw in the bearing of the young woman a fainttrace of coquetry, the stranger was emboldened to make an avowal. Howcould he resist doing so? The sky was blue, the sand blazed in thedistance like a scimitar of gold, the wind of the desert breathedlove, and the woman of Arabia seemed to reflect all the fire withwhich she was surrounded; her piercing eyes were suffused with a mist;and by a slight nod of the head she seemed to make the luminousatmosphere undulate, as she consented to listen to the stranger'swords of love. The sage was intoxicated with delirious hopes, when theyoung woman, hearing in the distance the gallop of a horse whichseemed to fly, exclaimed:

"We are lost! My husband is sure to catch us. He is jealous as atiger, and more pitiless than one. In the name of the prophet, if youlove your life, conceal yourself in this chest!"

The author, frightened out of his wits, seeing no other way of gettingout of a terrible fix, jumped into the box, and crouched down there.The woman closed down the lid, locked it, and took the key. She ran tomeet her husband, and after some caresses which put him into a goodhumor, she said:

"I must relate to you a very singular adventure I have just had."

"I am listening, my gazelle," replied the Arab, who sat down on a rugand crossed his feet after the Oriental manner.

"There arrived here to-day a kind of philosopher," she began, "heprofesses to have compiled a book which describes all the wiles ofwhich my sex is capable; and then this sham sage made love to me."

"Well, go on!" cried the Arab.

"I listened to his avowal. He was young, ardent--and you came just intime to save my tottering virtue."

The Arab leaped to his feet like a lion, and drew his scimitar with ashout of fury. The philosopher heard all from the depths of the chestand consigned to Hades his book, and all the men and women of ArabiaPetraea.

"Fatima!" cried the husband, "if you would save your life, answer me--Where is the traitor?"

Terrified at the tempest which she had roused, Fatima threw herself ather husband's feet, and trembling beneath the point of his sword, shepointed out the chest with a prompt though timid glance of her eye.Then she rose to her feet, as if in shame, and taking the key from hergirdle presented it to the jealous Arab; but, just as he was about toopen the chest, the sly creature burst into a peal of laughter. Farounstopped with a puzzled expression, and looked at his wife inamazement.

"So I shall have my fine chain of gold, after all!" she cried, dancingfor joy. "You have lost the Diadeste. Be more mindful next time."

The husband, thunderstruck, let fall the key, and offered her thelonged-for chain on bended knee, and promised to bring to his darlingFatima all the jewels brought by the caravan in a year, if she wouldrefrain from winning the Diadeste by such cruel stratagems. Then, ashe was an Arab, and did not like forfeiting a chain of gold, althoughhis wife had fairly won it, he mounted his horse again, and gallopedoff, to complain at his will, in the desert, for he loved Fatima toowell to let her see his annoyance. The young woman then drew forth thephilosopher from the chest, and gravely said to him, "Do not forget,Master Doctor, to put this feminine trick into your collection."

"Madame," said I to the duchess, "I understand! If I marry, I am boundto be unexpectedly outwitted by some infernal trick or other; but Ishall in that case, you may be quite sure, furnish a model householdfor the admiration of my contemporaries."

PARIS, 1824-29.

THE END.

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