{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_5958/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_5958","id":"gutenberg_5958","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5958","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Marriage -- Humor"],"text":"Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers\n\n\n\n\n\n                      THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE\n\n                              THIRD PART\n\n                                  BY\n\n                           HONORE DE BALZAC\n\n\n\n                        RELATING TO CIVIL WAR.\n\n                \"Lovely as the seraphs of Klopstock,\n                 Terrible as the devils of Milton.\"\n                                               --DIDEROT.\n\n\n\n                          MEDITATION XXIII.\n\n                           OF MANIFESTOES.\n\nThe Preliminary precepts, by which science has been enabled at this\npoint to put weapons into the hand of a husband, are few in number; it\nis not of so much importance to know whether he will be vanquished, as\nto examine whether he can offer any resistance in the conflict.\n\nMeanwhile, we will set up here certain beacons to light up the arena\nwhere a husband is soon to find himself, in alliance with religion and\nlaw, engaged single-handed in a contest with his wife, who is\nsupported by her native craft and the whole usages of society as her\nallies.\n\n\n                               LXXXII.\n Anything may be expected and anything may be supposed of a woman who\n                             is in love.\n\n\n                               LXXXIII.\n The actions of a woman who intends to deceive her husband are almost\n      always the result of study, but never dictated by reason.\n\n\n                               LXXXIV.\nThe greater number of women advance like the fleas, by erratic leaps\nand bounds, They owe their escape to the height or depth of their\nfirst ideas, and any interruption of their plans rather favors their\nexecution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy\nfor the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will\nend by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre.\n\n\n                                LXXXV.\n A husband should never allow himself to address a single disparaging\n          remark to his wife, in presence of a third party.\n\n\n                               LXXXVI.\nThe moment a wife decides to break her marriage vow she reckons her\nhusband as everything or nothing. All defensive operations must start\nfrom this proposition.\n\n\n                               LXXXVII.\nThe life of a woman is either of the head, of the heart, or of\npassion. When a woman reaches the age to form an estimate of life, her\nhusband ought to find out whether the primary cause of her intended\ninfidelity proceeds from vanity, from sentiment or from temperament.\nTemperament may be remedied like disease; sentiment is something in\nwhich the husband may find great opportunities of success; but vanity\nis incurable. A woman whose life is of the head may be a terrible\nscourge. She combines the faults of a passionate woman with those of\nthe tender-hearted woman, without having their palliations. She is\ndestitute alike of pity, love, virtue or sex.\n\n\n                              LXXXVIII.\nA woman whose life is of the head will strive to inspire her husband\nwith indifference; the woman whose life is of the heart, with hatred;\nthe passionate woman, with disgust.\n\n\n                               LXXXIX.\nA husband never loses anything by appearing to believe in the fidelity\nof his wife, by preserving an air of patience and by keeping silence.\nSilence especially troubles a woman amazingly.\n\n\n                                 XC.\nTo show himself aware of the passion of his wife is the mark of a\nfool; but to affect ignorance of all proves that a man has sense, and\nthis is in fact the only attitude to take. We are taught, moreover,\nthat everybody in France is sensible.\n\n\n                                 XCI.\nThe rock most to be avoided is ridicule.--\"At least, let us be\naffectionate in public,\" ought to be the maxim of a married\nestablishment. For both the married couple to lose honor, esteem,\nconsideration, respect and all that is worth living for in society, is\n                        to become a nonentity.\n\n\nThese axioms relate to the contest alone. As for the catastrophe,\nothers will be needed for that.\n\n\n\nWe have called this crisis _Civil War_ for two reasons; never was a\nwar more really intestine and at the same time so polite as this war.\nBut in what point and in what manner does this fatal war break out?\nYou do not believe that your wife will call out regiments and sound\nthe trumpet, do you? She will, perhaps, have a commanding officer, but\nthat is all. And this feeble army corps will be sufficient to destroy\nthe peace of your establishment.\n\n\"You forbid me to see the people that I like!\" is an exordium which\nhas served for a manifesto in most homes. This phrase, with all the\nideas that are concomitant, is oftenest employed by vain and\nartificial women.\n\nThe most usual manifesto is that which is proclaimed in the conjugal\nbed, the principal theatre of war. This subject will be treated in\ndetail in the Meditation entitled: _Of Various Weapons_, in the\nparagraph, _Of Modesty in its Connection with Marriage_.\n\nCertain women of a lymphatic temperament will pretend to have the\nspleen and will even feign death, if they can only gain thereby the\nbenefit of a secret divorce.\n\nBut most of them owe their independence to the execution of a plan,\nwhose effect upon the majority of husbands is unfailing and whose\nperfidies we will now reveal.\n\nOne of the greatest of human errors springs from the belief that our\nhonor and our reputation are founded upon our actions, or result from\nthe approbation which the general conscience bestows upon on conduct.\nA man who lives in the world is born to be a slave to public opinion.\nNow a private man in France has less opportunity of influencing the\nworld than his wife, although he has ample occasion for ridiculing it.\nWomen possess to a marvelous degree the art of giving color by\nspecious arguments to the recriminations in which they indulge. They\nnever set up any defence, excepting when they are in the wrong, and in\nthis proceeding they are pre-eminent, knowing how to oppose arguments\nby precedents, proofs by assertions, and thus they very often obtain\nvictory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirable\npenetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which she\nherself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose a\nhusband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwards\nare terror-stricken at the conflagration.\n\nAs a general thing, all women league themselves against a married man\nwho is accused of tyranny; for a secret tie unites them all, as it\nunites all priests of the same religion. They hate each other, yet\nshield each other. You can never gain over more than one of them; and\nyet this act of seduction would be a triumph for your wife.\n\nYou are, therefore, outlawed from the feminine kingdom. You see\nironical smiles on every lip, you meet an epigram in every answer.\nThese clever creatures force their daggers and amuse themselves by\nsculpturing the handle before dealing you a graceful blow.\n\nThe treacherous art of reservation, the tricks of silence, the malice\nof suppositions, the pretended good nature of an inquiry, all these\narts are employed against you. A man who undertakes to subjugate his\nwife is an example too dangerous to escape destruction from them, for\nwill not his conduct call up against them the satire of every husband?\nMoreover, all of them will attack you, either by bitter witticisms, or\nby serious arguments, or by the hackneyed maxims of gallantry. A swarm\nof celibates will support all their sallies and you will be assailed\nand persecuted as an original, a tyrant, a bad bed-fellow, an\neccentric man, a man not to be trusted.\n\nYour wife will defend you like the bear in the fable of La Fontaine;\nshe will throw paving stones at your head to drive away the flies that\nalight on it. She will tell you in the evening all the things that\nhave been said about you, and will ask an explanation of acts which\nyou never committed, and of words which you never said. She professes\nto have justified you for faults of which you are innocent; she has\nboasted of a liberty which she does not possess, in order to clear you\nof the wrong which you have done in denying that liberty. The\ndeafening rattle which your wife shakes will follow you everywhere\nwith its obtrusive din. Your darling will stun you, will torture you,\nmeanwhile arming herself by making you feel only the thorns of married\nlife. She will greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will be\nsullen at home. She will be dull when you are merry, and will make you\ndetest her merriment when you are moody. Your two faces will present a\nperpetual contrast.\n\nVery few men have sufficient force of mind not to succumb to this\npreliminary comedy, which is always cleverly played, and resembles the\n_hourra_ raised by the Cossacks, as they advance to battle. Many\nhusbands become irritated and fall into irreparable mistakes. Others\nabandon their wives. And, indeed, even those of superior intelligence\ndo not know how to get hold of the enchanted ring, by which to dispel\nthis feminine phantasmagoria.\n\nTwo-thirds of such women are enabled to win their independence by this\nsingle manoeuvre, which is no more than a review of their forces. In\nthis case the war is soon ended.\n\nBut a strong man who courageously keeps cool throughout this first\nassault will find much amusement in laying bare to his wife, in a\nlight and bantering way, the secret feelings which make her thus\nbehave, in following her step by step through the labyrinth which she\ntreads, and telling her in answer to her every remark, that she is\nfalse to herself, while he preserves throughout a tone of pleasantry\nand never becomes excited.\n\nMeanwhile war is declared, and if her husband has not been dazzled by\nthese first fireworks, a woman has yet many other resources for\nsecuring her triumph; and these it is the purpose of the following\nMeditations to discover.\n\n\n\n                           MEDITATION XXIV.\n\n                       PRINCIPLES OF STRATEGY.\n\nThe Archduke Charles published a very fine treatise on military under\nthe title _Principles of Strategy in Relation to the Campaigns of\n1796_. These principles seem somewhat to resemble poetic canons\nprepared for poems already published. In these days we are become very\nmuch more energetic, we invent rules to suit works and works to suit\nrules. But of what use were ancient principles of military art in\npresence of the impetuous genius of Napoleon? If, to-day, however, we\nreduce to a system the lessons taught by this great captain whose new\ntactics have destroyed the ancient ones, what future guarantee do we\npossess that another Napoleon will not yet be born? Books on military\nart meet, with few exceptions, the fate of ancient works on Chemistry\nand Physics. Everything is subject to change, either constant or\nperiodic.\n\nThis, in a few words, is the history of our work.\n\nSo long as we have been dealing with a woman who is inert or lapped in\nslumber, nothing has been easier than to weave the meshes with which\nwe have bound her; but the moment she wakes up and begins to struggle,\nall is confusion and complication. If a husband would make an effort\nto recall the principles of the system which we have just described in\norder to involve his wife in the nets which our second part has set\nfor her, he would resemble Wurmser, Mack and Beaulieu arranging their\nhalts and their marches while Napoleon nimbly turns their flank, and\nmakes use of their own tactics to destroy them.\n\nThis is just what your wife will do.\n\nHow is it possible to get at the truth when each of you conceals it\nunder the same lie, each setting the same trap for the other? And\nwhose will be the victory when each of you is caught in a similar\nsnare?\n\n\"My dear, I have to go out; I have to pay a visit to Madame So and So.\nI have ordered the carriage. Would you like to come with me? Come, be\ngood, and go with your wife.\"\n\nYou say to yourself:\n\n\"She would be nicely caught if I consented! She asks me only to be\nrefused.\"\n\nThen you reply to her:\n\n\"Just at the moment I have some business with Monsieur Blank, for he\nhas to give a report in a business matter which deeply concerns us\nboth, and I must absolutely see him. Then I must go to the Minister of\nFinance. So your arrangement will suit us both.\"\n\n\"Very well, dearest, go and dress yourself, while Celine finishes\ndressing me; but don't keep me waiting.\"\n\n\"I am ready now, love,\" you cry out, at the end of ten minutes, as you\nstand shaved and dressed.\n\nBut all is changed. A letter has arrived; madame is not well; her\ndress fits badly; the dressmaker has come; if it is not the dressmaker\nit is your mother. Ninety-nine out of a hundred husbands will leave\nthe house satisfied, believing that their wives are well guarded,\nwhen, as a matter of fact, the wives have gotten rid of them.\n\nA lawful wife who from her husband cannot escape, who is not\ndistressed by pecuniary anxiety, and who in order to give employment\nto a vacant mind, examines night and day the changing tableaux of each\nday's experience, soon discovers the mistake she has made in falling\ninto a trap or allowing herself to be surprised by a catastrophe; she\nwill then endeavor to turn all these weapons against you.\n\nThere is a man in society, the sight of whom is strangely annoying to\nyour wife; she can tolerate neither his tone, his manners nor his way\nof regarding things. Everything connected with him is revolting to\nher; she is persecuted by him, he is odious to her; she hopes that no\none will tell him this. It seems almost as if she were attempting to\noppose you; for this man is one for whom you have the highest esteem.\nYou like his disposition because he flatters you; and thus your wife\npresumes that your esteem for him results from flattered vanity. When\nyou give a ball, an evening party or a concert, there is almost a\ndiscussion on this subject, and madame picks a quarrel with you,\nbecause you are compelling her to see people who are not agreeable to\nher.\n\n\"At least, sir, I shall never have to reproach myself with omitting to\nwarn you. That man will yet cause you trouble. You should put some\nconfidence in women when they pass sentence on the character of a man.\nAnd permit me to tell you that this baron, for whom you have such a\npredilection, is a very dangerous person, and you are doing very wrong\nto bring him to your house. And this is the way you behave; you\nabsolutely force me to see one whom I cannot tolerate, and if I ask\nyou to invite Monsieur A-----, you refuse to do so, because you think\nthat I like to have him with me! I admit that he talks well, that he\nis kind and amiable; but you are more to me than he can ever be.\"\n\nThese rude outlines of feminine tactics, which are emphasized by\ninsincere gestures, by looks of feigned ingenuousness, by artful\nintonations of the voice and even by the snare of cunning silence, are\ncharacteristic to some degree of their whole conduct.\n\nThere are few husbands who in such circumstances as these do not form\nthe idea of setting a mouse-trap; they welcome as their guests both\nMonsieur A----- and the imaginary baron who represents the person whom\ntheir wives abhor, and they do so in the hope of discovering a lover\nin the celibate who is apparently beloved.\n\nOh yes, I have often met in the world young men who were absolutely\nstarlings in love and complete dupes of a friendship which women\npretended to show them, women who felt themselves obliged to make a\ndiversion and to apply a blister to their husbands as their husbands\nhad previously done to them! These poor innocents pass their time in\nrunning errands, in engaging boxes at the theatre, in riding in the\nBois de Boulogne by the carriages of their pretended mistresses; they\nare publicly credited with possessing women whose hands they have not\neven kissed. Vanity prevents them from contradicting these flattering\nrumors, and like the young priests who celebrate masses without a\nHost, they enjoy a mere show passion, and are veritable\nsupernumeraries of love.\n\nUnder these circumstances sometimes a husband on returning home asks\nthe porter: \"Has no one been here?\"--\"M. le Baron came past at two\no'clock to see monsieur; but as he found no one was in but madame he\nwent away; but Monsieur A----- is with her now.\"\n\nYou reach the drawing-room, you see there a young celibate, sprightly,\nscented, wearing a fine necktie, in short a perfect dandy. He is a man\nwho holds you in high esteem; when he comes to your house your wife\nlistens furtively for his footsteps; at a ball she always dances with\nhim. If you forbid her to see him, she makes a great outcry and it is\nnot till many years afterwards [see Meditation on _Las Symptoms_] that\nyou see the innocence of Monsieur A----- and the culpability of the\nbaron.\n\nWe have observed and noted as one of the cleverest manoeuvres, that of\na young woman who, carried away by an irresistible passion, exhibited\na bitter hatred to the man she did not love, but lavished upon her\nlover secret intimations of her love. The moment that her husband was\npersuaded that she loved the _Cicisbeo_ and hated the _Patito_, she\narranged that she and the _Patito_ should be found in a situation\nwhose compromising character she had calculated in advance, and her\nhusband and the execrated celibate were thus induced to believe that\nher love and her aversion were equally insincere. When she had brought\nher husband into the condition of perplexity, she managed that a\npassionate letter should fall into his hands. One evening in the midst\nof the admirable catastrophe which she had thus brought to a climax,\nmadame threw herself at her husband's feet, wet them with her tears,\nand thus concluded the climax to her own satisfaction.\n\n\"I esteem and honor you profoundly,\" she cried, \"for keeping your own\ncounsel as you have done. I am in love! Is this a sentiment which is\neasy for me to repress? But what I can do is to confess the fact to\nyou; to implore you to protect me from myself, to save me from my own\nfolly. Be my master and be a stern master to me; take me away from\nthis place, remove me from what has caused all this trouble, console\nme; I will forget him, I desire to do so. I do not wish to betray you.\nI humbly ask your pardon for the treachery love has suggested to me.\nYes, I confess to you that the love which I pretended to have for my\ncousin was a snare set to deceive you. I love him with the love of\nfriendship and no more.--Oh! forgive me! I can love no one but\"--her\nvoice was choked in passionate sobs--\"Oh! let us go away, let us leave\nParis!\"\n\nShe began to weep; her hair was disheveled, her dress in disarray; it\nwas midnight, and her husband forgave her. From henceforth, the cousin\nmade his appearance without risk, and the Minotaur devoured one victim\nmore.\n\nWhat instructions can we give for contending with such adversaries as\nthese? Their heads contain all the diplomacy of the congress of\nVienna; they have as much power when they are caught as when they\nescape. What man has a mind supple enough to lay aside brute force and\nstrength and follow his wife through such mazes as these?\n\nTo make a false plea every moment, in order to elicit the truth, a\ntrue plea in order to unmask falsehood; to charge the battery when\nleast expected, and to spike your gun at the very moment of firing it;\nto scale the mountain with the enemy, in order to descend to the plain\nagain five minutes later; to accompany the foe in windings as rapid,\nas obscure as those of a plover on the breezes; to obey when obedience\nis necessary, and to oppose when resistance is inertial; to traverse\nthe whole scale of hypotheses as a young artist with one stroke runs\nfrom the lowest to the highest note of his piano; to divine at last\nthe secret purpose on which a woman is bent; to fear her caresses and\nto seek rather to find out what are the thoughts that suggested them\nand the pleasure which she derived from them--this is mere child's pay\nfor the man of intellect and for those lucid and searching\nimaginations which possess the gift of doing and thinking at the same\ntime. But there are a vast number of husbands who are terrified at the\nmere idea of putting in practice these principles in their dealings\nwith a woman.\n\nSuch men as these prefer passing their lives in making huge efforts to\nbecome second-class chess-players, or to pocket adroitly a ball in\nbilliards.\n\nSome of them will tell you that they are incapable of keeping their\nminds on such a constant strain and breaking up the habits of their\nlife. In that case the woman triumphs. She recognizes that in mind and\nenergy she is her husband's superior, although the superiority may be\nbut temporary; and yet there rises in her a feeling of contempt for\nthe head of the house.\n\nIf many man fail to be masters in their own house this is not from\nlack of willingness, but of talent. As for those who are ready to\nundergo the toils of this terrible duel, it is quite true that they\nmust needs possess great moral force.\n\nAnd really, as soon as it is necessary to display all the resources of\nthis secret strategy, it is often useless to attempt setting any traps\nfor these satanic creatures. Once women arrive at a point when they\nwillfully deceive, their countenances become as inscrutable as\nvacancy. Here is an example which came within my own experience.\n\nA very young, very pretty, and very clever coquette of Paris had not\nyet risen. Seated by her bed was one of her dearest friends. A letter\narrived from another, a very impetuous fellow, to whom she had allowed\nthe right of speaking to her like a master. The letter was in pencil\nand ran as follows:\n\n\"I understand that Monsieur C----- is with you at this moment. I am\nwaiting for him to blow his brains out.\"\n\nMadame D----- calmly continued the conversation with Monsieur C-----.\nShe asked him to hand her a little writing desk of red leather which\nstood on the table, and he brought it to her.\n\n\"Thanks, my dear,\" she said to him; \"go on talking, I am listening to\nyou.\"\n\nC----- talked away and she replied, all the while writing the\nfollowing note:\n\n\"As soon as you become jealous of C----- you two can blow out each\nother's brains at your pleasure. As for you, you may die; but brains\n--you haven't any brains to blow out.\"\n\n\"My dear friend,\" she said to C-----, \"I beg you will light this\ncandle. Good, you are charming. And now be kind enough to leave me and\nlet me get up, and give this letter to Monsieur d'H-----, who is\nwaiting at the door.\"\n\nAll this was said with admirable coolness. The tones and intonations\nof her voice, the expression of her face showed no emotion. Her\naudacity was crowned with complete success. On receiving the answer\nfrom the hand of Monsieur C-----, Monsieur d'H----- felt his wrath\nsubside. He was troubled with only one thing and that was how to\ndisguise his inclination to laugh.\n\nThe more torch-light one flings into the immense cavern which we are\nnow trying to illuminate, the more profound it appears. It is a\nbottomless abyss. It appears to us that our task will be accomplished\nmore agreeably and more instructively if we show the principles of\nstrategy put into practice in the case of a woman, when she has\nreached a high degree of vicious accomplishment. An example suggests\nmore maxims and reveals the existence of more methods than all\npossible theories.\n\nOne day at the end of a dinner given to certain intimate friends by\nPrince Lebrun, the guests, heated by champagne, were discussing the\ninexhaustible subject of feminine artifice. The recent adventure which\nwas credited to the Countess R. D. S. J. D. A-----, apropos of a\nnecklace, was the subject first broached. A highly esteemed artist, a\ngifted friend of the emperor, was vigorously maintaining the opinion,\nwhich seemed somewhat unmanly, that it was forbidden to a man to\nresist successfully the webs woven by a woman.\n\n\"It is my happy experience,\" he said, \"that to them nothing is\nsacred.\"\n\nThe ladies protested.\n\n\"But I can cite an instance in point.\"\n\n\"It is an exception!\"\n\n\"Let us hear the story,\" said a young lady.\n\n\"Yes, tell it to us,\" cried all the guests.\n\nThe prudent old gentleman cast his eyes around, and, after having\nformed his conclusions as to the age of the ladies, smiled and said:\n\n\"Since we are all experienced in life, I consent to relate the\nadventure.\"\n\nDead silence followed, and the narrator read the following from a\nlittle book which he had taken from his pocket:\n\n\nI was head over ears in love with the Comtesse de -----. I was twenty\nand I was ingenuous. She deceived me. I was angry; she threw me over.\nI was ingenuous, I repeat, and I was grieved to lose her. I was\ntwenty; she forgave me. And as I was twenty, as I was always\ningenuous, always deceived, but never again thrown over by her, I\nbelieved myself to have been the best beloved of lovers, consequently\nthe happiest of men. The countess had a friend, Madame de T-----, who\nseemed to have some designs on me, but without compromising her\ndignity; for she was scrupulous and respected the proprieties. One day\nwhile I was waiting for the countess in her Opera box, I heard my name\ncalled from a contiguous box. It was Madame de T-----.\n\n\"What,\" she said, \"already here? Is this fidelity or merely a want of\nsomething to do? Won't you come to me?\"\n\nHer voice and her manner had a meaning in them, but I was far from\ninclined at that moment to indulge in a romance.\n\n\"Have you any plans for this evening?\" she said to me. \"Don't make\nany! If I cheer your tedious solitude you ought to be devoted to me.\nDon't ask any questions, but obey. Call my servants.\"\n\nI answered with a bow and on being requested to leave the Opera box, I\nobeyed.\n\n\"Go to this gentleman's house,\" she said to the lackey. \"Say he will\nnot be home till to-morrow.\"\n\nShe made a sign to him, he went to her, she whispered in his ear, and\nhe left us. The Opera began. I tried to venture on a few words, but\nshe silenced me; some one might be listening. The first act ended, the\nlackey brought back a note, and told her that everything was ready.\nThen she smiled, asked for my hand, took me off, put me in her\ncarriage, and I started on my journey quite ignorant of my\ndestination. Every inquiry I made was answered by a peal of laughter.\nIf I had not been aware that this was a woman of great passion, that\nshe had long loved the Marquis de V-----, that she must have known I\nwas aware of it, I should have believed myself in good luck; but she\nknew the condition of my heart, and the Comtesse de -----. I therefore\nrejected all presumptuous ideas and bided my time. At the first stop,\na change of horses was supplied with the swiftness of lightning and we\nstarted afresh. The matter was becoming serious. I asked with some\ninsistency, where this joke was to end.\n\n\"Where?\" she said, laughing. \"In the pleasantest place in the world,\nbut can't you guess? I'll give you a thousand chances. Give it up, for\nyou will never guess. We are going to my husband's house. Do you know\nhim?\"\n\n\"Not in the least.\"\n\n\"So much the better, I thought you didn't. But I hope you will like\nhim. We have lately become reconciled. Negotiations went on for six\nmonths; and we have been writing to one another for a month. I think\nit is very kind of me to go and look him up.\"\n\n\"It certainly is, but what am I going to do there? What good will I be\nin this reconciliation?\"\n\n\"Ah, that is my business. You are young, amiable, unconventional; you\nsuit me and will save me from the tediousness of a tete-a-tete.\"\n\n\"But it seems odd to me, to choose the day or the night of a\nreconciliation to make us acquainted; the awkwardness of the first\ninterview, the figure all three of us will cut,--I don't see anything\nparticularly pleasant in that.\"\n\n\"I have taken possession of you for my own amusement!\" she said with\nan imperious air, \"so please don't preach.\"\n\nI saw she was decided, so surrendered myself to circumstances. I began\nto laugh at my predicament and we became exceedingly merry. We again\nchanged horses. The mysterious torch of night lit up a sky of extreme\nclearness and shed around a delightful twilight. We were approaching\nthe spot where our tete-a-tete must end. She pointed out to me at\nintervals the beauty of the landscape, the tranquillity of the night,\nthe all-pervading silence of nature. In order to admire these things\nin company as it was natural we should, we turned to the same window\nand our faces touched for a moment. In a sudden shock she seized my\nhand, and by a chance which seemed to me extraordinary, for the stone\nover which our carriage had bounded could not have been very large, I\nfound Madame de T----- in my arms. I do not know what we were trying\nto see; what I am sure of is that the objects before our eyes began in\nspite of the full moon to grow misty, when suddenly I was released\nfrom her weight, and she sank into the back cushions of the carriage.\n\n\"Your object,\" she said, rousing herself from a deep reverie, \"is\npossibly to convince me of the imprudence of this proceeding. Judge,\ntherefore, of my embarrassment!\"\n\n\"My object!\" I replied, \"what object can I have with regard to you?\nWhat a delusion! You look very far ahead; but of course the sudden\nsurprise or turn of chance may excuse anything.\"\n\n\"You have counted, then, upon that chance, it seems to me?\"\n\nWe had reached our destination, and before we were aware of it, we had\nentered the court of the chateau. The whole place was brightly lit up.\nEverything wore a festal air, excepting the face of its master, who at\nthe sight of me seemed anything but delighted. He came forward and\nexpressed in somewhat hesitating terms the tenderness proper to the\noccasion of a reconciliation. I understood later on that this\nreconciliation was absolutely necessary from family reasons. I was\npresented to him and was coldly greeted. He extended his hand to his\nwife, and I followed the two, thinking of my part in the past, in the\npresent and in the future. I passed through apartments decorated with\nexquisite taste. The master in this respect had gone beyond all the\nordinary refinement of luxury, in the hope of reanimating, by the\ninfluence of voluptuous imagery, a physical nature that was dead. Not\nknowing what to say, I took refuge in expressions of admiration. The\ngoddess of the temple, who was quite ready to do the honors, accepted\nmy compliments.\n\n\"You have not seen anything,\" she said. \"I must take you to the\napartments of my husband.\"\n\n\"Madame, five years ago I caused them to be pulled down.\"\n\n\"Oh! Indeed!\" said she.\n\nAt the dinner, what must she do but offer the master some fish, on\nwhich he said to her:\n\n\"Madame, I have been living on milk for the last three years.\"\n\n\"Oh! Indeed!\" she said again.\n\nCan any one imagine three human beings as astonished as we were to\nfind ourselves gathered together? The husband looked at me with a\nsupercilious air, and I paid him back with a look of audacity.\n\nMadame de T----- smiled at me and was charming to me; Monsieur de\nT----- accepted me as a necessary evil. Never in all my life have I\ntaken part in a dinner which was so odd as that. The dinner ended, I\nthought that we would go to bed early--that is, I thought that\nMonsieur de T----- would. As we entered the drawing-room:\n\n\"I appreciate, madame,\" said he, \"your precaution in bringing this\ngentleman with you. You judged rightly that I should be but poor\ncompany for the evening, and you have done well, for I am going to\nretire.\"\n\nThen turning to me, he added in a tone of profound sarcasm:\n\n\"You will please to pardon me, and obtain also pardon from madame.\"\n\nHe left us. My reflections? Well, the reflections of a twelvemonth\nwere then comprised in those of a minute. When we were left alone,\nMadame de T----- and I, we looked at each other so curiously that, in\norder to break through the awkwardness, she proposed that we should\ntake a turn on the terrace while we waited, as she said, until the\nservants had supped.\n\nIt was a superb night. It was scarcely possible to discern surrounding\nobjects, they seemed to be covered with a veil, that imagination might\nbe permitted to take a loftier flight. The gardens, terraced on the\nside of a mountain, sloped down, platform after platform, to the banks\nof the Seine, and the eye took in the many windings of the stream\ncovered with islets green and picturesque. These variations in the\nlandscape made up a thousand pictures which gave to the spot,\nnaturally charming, a thousand novel features. We walked along the\nmost extensive of these terraces, which was covered with a thick\numbrage of trees. She had recovered from the effects of her husband's\npersiflage, and as we walked along she gave me her confidence.\nConfidence begets confidence, and as I told her mine, all she said to\nme became more intimate and more interesting. Madame de T----- at\nfirst gave me her arm; but soon this arm became interlaced in mine, I\nknow not how, but in some way almost lifted her up and prevented her\nfrom touching the ground. The position was agreeable, but became at\nlast fatiguing. We had been walking for a long time and we still had\nmuch to say to each other. A bank of turf appeared and she sat down\nwithout withdrawing her arm. And in this position we began to sound\nthe praises of mutual confidence, its charms and its delights.\n\n\"Ah!\" she said to me, \"who can enjoy it more than we and with less\ncause of fear? I know well the tie that binds you to another, and\ntherefore have nothing to fear.\"\n\nPerhaps she wished to be contradicted. But I answered not a word. We\nwere then mutually persuaded that it was possible for us to be friends\nwithout fear of going further.\n\n\"But I was afraid, however,\" I said, \"that that sudden jolt in the\ncarriage and the surprising consequences may have frightened you.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am not so easily alarmed!\"\n\n\"I fear it has left a little cloud on your mind?\"\n\n\"What must I do to reassure you?\"\n\n\"Give me the kiss here which chance--\"\n\n\"I will gladly do so; for if I do not, your vanity will lead you to\nthink that I fear you.\"\n\nI took the kiss.\n\nIt is with kisses as with confidences, the first leads to another.\nThey are multiplied, they interrupt conversation, they take its place;\nthey scarce leave time for a sigh to escape. Silence followed. We\ncould hear it, for silence may be heard. We rose without a word and\nbegan to walk again.\n\n\"We must go in,\" said she, \"for the air of the river is icy, and it is\nnot worth while--\"\n\n\"I think to go in would be more dangerous,\" I answered.\n\n\"Perhaps so! Never mind, we will go in.\"\n\n\"Why, is this out of consideration for me? You wish doubtless to save\nme from the impressions which I may receive from such a walk as this\n--the consequences which may result. Is it for me--for me only--?\"\n\n\"You are modest,\" she said smiling, \"and you credit me with singular\nconsideration.\"\n\n\"Do you think so? Well, since you take it in this way, we will go in;\nI demand it.\"\n\nA stupid proposition, when made by two people who are forcing\nthemselves to say something utterly different from what they think.\n\nThen she compelled me to take the path that led back to the chateau. I\ndo not know, at least I did not then know, whether this course was one\nwhich she forced upon herself, whether it was the result of a vigorous\nresolution, or whether she shared my disappointment in seeing an\nincident which had begun so well thus suddenly brought to a close but\nby a mutual instinct our steps slackened and we pursued our way\ngloomily dissatisfied the one with the other and with ourselves. We\nknew not the why and the wherefore of what we were doing. Neither of\nus had the right to demand or even to ask anything. We had neither of\nus any ground for uttering a reproach. O that we had got up a quarrel!\nBut how could I pick one with her? Meanwhile we drew nearer and\nnearer, thinking how we might evade the duty which we had so awkwardly\nimposed upon ourselves. We reached the door, when Madame de T-----\nsaid to me:\n\n\"I am angry with you! After the confidences I have given you, not to\ngive me a single one! You have not said a word about the countess. And\nyet it is so delightful to speak of the one we love! I should have\nlistened with such interest! It was the very best I could do after I\nhad taken you away from her!\"\n\n\"Cannot I reproach you with the same thing?\" I said, interrupting her,\n\"and if instead of making me a witness to this singular reconciliation\nin which I play so odd a part, you had spoken to me of the marquis--\"\n\n\"Stop,\" she said, \"little as you know of women, you are aware that\ntheir confidences must be waited for, not asked. But to return to\nyourself. Are you very happy with my friend? Ah! I fear the\ncontrary--\"\n\n\"Why, madame, should everything that the public amuses itself by\nsaying claim our belief?\"\n\n\"You need not dissemble. The countess makes less a mystery of things\nthan you do. Women of her stamp do not keep the secrets of their loves\nand of their lovers, especially when you are prompted by discretion to\nconceal her triumph. I am far from accusing her of coquetry; but a\nprude has as much vanity as a coquette.--Come, tell me frankly, have\nyou not cause of complaint against her?\"\n\n\"But, madame, the air is really too icy for us to stay here. Would you\nlike to go in?\" said I with a smile.\n\n\"Do you find it so?--That is singular. The air is quite warm.\"\n\nShe had taken my arm again, and we continued to walk, although I did\nnot know the direction which we took. All that she had hinted at\nconcerning the lover of the countess, concerning my mistress, together\nwith this journey, the incident which took place in the carriage, our\nconversation on the grassy bank, the time of night, the moonlight--all\nmade me feel anxious. I was at the same time carried along by vanity,\nby desire, and so distracted by thought, that I was too excited\nperhaps to take notice of all that I was experiencing. And, while I\nwas overwhelmed with these mingled feelings, she continued talking to\nme of the countess, and my silence confirmed the truth of all that she\nchose to say about her. Nevertheless, certain passages in her talk\nrecalled me to myself.\n\n\"What an exquisite creature she is!\" she was saying. \"How graceful! On\nher lips the utterances of treachery sound like witticism; an act of\ninfidelity seems the prompting of reason, a sacrifice to propriety;\nwhile she is never reckless, she is always lovable; she is seldom\ntender and never sincere; amorous by nature, prudish on principle;\nsprightly, prudent, dexterous though utterly thoughtless, varied as\nProteus in her moods, but charming as the Graces in her manner; she\nattracts but she eludes. What a number of parts I have seen her play!\n_Entre nous_, what a number of dupes hang round her! What fun she has\nmade of the baron, what a life she has led the marquis! When she took\nyou, it was merely for the purpose of throwing the two rivals off the\nscent; they were on the point of a rupture; for she had played with\nthem too long, and they had had time to see through her. But she\nbrought you on the scene. Their attention was called to you, she led\nthem to redouble their pursuit, she was in despair over you, she\npitied you, she consoled you-- Ah! how happy is a clever woman when in\nsuch a game as this she professes to stake nothing of her own! But\nyet, is this true happiness?\"\n\nThis last phrase, accompanied by a significant sigh, was a\nmaster-stroke. I felt as if a bandage had fallen from my eyes, without\nseeing who had put it there. My mistress appeared to me the falsest of\nwomen, and I believed that I held now the only sensible creature in the\nworld. Then I sighed without knowing why. She seemed grieved at having\ngiven me pain and at having in her excitement drawn a picture, the\ntruth of which might be open to suspicion, since it was the work of a\nwoman. I do not know how I answered; for without realizing the drift\nof all I heard, I set out with her on the high road of sentiment, and\nwe mounted to such lofty heights of feeling that it was impossible to\nguess what would be the end of our journey. It was fortunate that we\nalso took the path towards a pavilion which she pointed out to me at\nthe end of the terrace, a pavilion, the witness of many sweet moments.\nShe described to me the furnishing of it. What a pity that she had not\nthe key! As she spoke we reached the pavilion and found that it was\nopen. The clearness of the moonlight outside did not penetrate, but\ndarkness has many charms. We trembled as we went in. It was a\nsanctuary. Might it not be the sanctuary of love? We drew near a sofa\nand sat down, and there we remained a moment listening to our\nheart-beats. The last ray of the moon carried away the last scruple.\nThe hand which repelled me felt my heart beat. She struggled to get\naway, but fell back overcome with tenderness. We talked together\nthrough that silence in the language of thought. Nothing is more\nrapturous than these mute conversations. Madame de T----- took refuge\nin my arms, hid her head in my bosom, sighed and then grew calm under\nmy caresses. She grew melancholy, she was consoled, and she asked of\nlove all that love had robbed her of. The sound of the river broke the\nsilence of night with a gentle murmur, which seemed in harmony with\nthe beating of our hearts. Such was the darkness of the place it was\nscarcely possible to discern objects; but through the transparent\ncrepe of a fair summer's night, the queen of that lovely place seemed\nto me adorable.\n\n\"Oh!\" she said to me with an angelic voice, \"let us leave this\ndangerous spot. Resistance here is beyond our strength.\"\n\nShe drew me away and we left the pavilion with regret.\n\n\"Ah! how happy is she!\" cried Madame de T-----.\n\n\"Whom do you mean?\" I asked.\n\n\"Did I speak?\" said she with a look of alarm.\n\nAnd then we reached the grassy bank, and stopped there involuntarily.\n\"What a distance there is,\" she said to me, \"between this place and\nthe pavilion!\"\n\n\"Yes indeed,\" said I. \"But must this bank be always ominous? Is there\na regret? Is there--?\"\n\nI do not know by what magic it took place; but at this point the\nconversation changed and became less serious. She ventured even to\nspeak playfully of the pleasures of love, to eliminate from them all\nmoral considerations, to reduce them to their simplest elements, and\nto prove that the favors of lovers were mere pleasure, that there were\nno pledges--philosophically speaking--excepting those which were given\nto the world, when we allowed it to penetrate our secrets and joined\nit in the acts of indiscretion.\n\n\"How mild is the night,\" she said, \"which we have by chance picked\nout! Well, if there are reasons, as I suppose there are, which compel\nus to part to-morrow, our happiness, ignored as it is by all nature,\nwill not leave us any ties to dissolve. There will, perhaps, be some\nregrets, the pleasant memory of which will give us reparation; and\nthen there will be a mutual understanding, without all the delays, the\nfuss and the tyranny of legal proceedings. We are such machines--and I\nblush to avow it--that in place of all the shrinkings that tormented\nme before this scene took place, I was half inclined to embrace the\nboldness of these principles, and I felt already disposed to indulge\nin the love of liberty.\n\n\"This beautiful night,\" she continued, \"this lovely scenery at this\nmoment have taken on fresh charms. O let us never forget this\npavilion! The chateau,\" she added smilingly, \"contains a still more\ncharming place, but I dare not show you anything; you are like a\nchild, who wishes to touch everything and breaks everything that he\ntouches.\"\n\nMoved by a sentiment of curiosity I protested that I was a very good\nchild. She changed the subject.\n\n\"This night,\" she said, \"would be for me without a regret if I were\nnot vexed with myself for what I said to you about the countess. Not\nthat I wish to find fault with you. Novelty attracts me. You have\nfound me amiable, I should like to believe in your good faith. But the\ndominion of habit takes a long time to break through and I have not\nlearned the secret of doing this--By the bye, what do you think of my\nhusband?\"\n\n\"Well, he is rather cross, but I suppose he could not be otherwise to\nme.\"\n\n\"Oh, that is true, but his way of life isn't pleasant, and he could\nnot see you here with indifference. He might be suspicious even of our\nfriendship.\"\n\n\"Oh! he is so already.\"\n\n\"Confess that he has cause. Therefore you must not prolong this visit;\nhe might take it amiss. As soon as any one arrives--\" and she added\nwith a smile, \"some one is going to arrive--you must go. You have to\nkeep up appearance, you know. Remember his manner when he left us\nto-night.\"\n\nI was tempted to interpret this adventure as a trap, but as she\nnoticed the impression made by her words, she added:\n\n\"Oh, he was very much gayer when he was superintending the arrangement\nof the cabinet I told you about. That was before my marriage. This\npassage leads to my apartment. Alas! it testifies to the cunning\nartifices to which Monsieur de T----- has resorted in protecting his\nlove for me.\"\n\n\"How pleasant it would be,\" I said to her, keenly excited by the\ncuriosity she had roused in me, \"to take vengeance in this spot for\nthe insults which your charms have suffered, and to seek to make\nrestitution for the pleasures of which you have been robbed.\"\n\nShe doubtless thought this remark in good taste, but she said: \"You\npromised to be good!\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI threw a veil over the follies which every age will pardon to youth,\non the ground of so many balked desires and bitter memories. In the\nmorning, scarcely raising her liquid eyes, Madame de T-----, fairer\nthan ever, said to me:\n\n\"Now will you ever love the countess as much as you do me?\"\n\nI was about to answer when her maid, her confidante, appeared saying:\n\n\"You must go. It is broad daylight, eleven o'clock, and the chateau is\nalready awake.\"\n\nAll had vanished like a dream! I found myself wandering through the\ncorridors before I had recovered my senses. How could I regain my\napartment, not knowing where it was? Any mistake might bring about an\nexposure. I resolved on a morning walk. The coolness of the fresh air\ngradually tranquilized my imagination and brought me back to the world\nof reality; and now instead of a world of enchantment I saw myself in\nmy soul, and my thoughts were no longer disturbed but followed each\nother in connected order; in fact, I breathed once more. I was, above\nall things, anxious to learn what I was to her so lately left--I who\nknew that she had been desperately in love with the Marquis de V-----.\nCould she have broken with him? Had she taken me to be his successor,\nor only to punish him? What a night! What an adventure! Yes, and what\na delightful woman! While I floated on the waves of these thoughts, I\nheard a sound near at hand. I raised my eyes, I rubbed them, I could\nnot believe my senses. Can you guess who it was? The Marquis de\nV-----!\n\n\"You did not expect to see me so early, did you?\" he said. \"How has it\nall gone off?\"\n\n\"Did you know that I was here?\" I asked in utter amazement.\n\n\"Oh, yes, I received word just as you left Paris. Have you played your\npart well? Did not the husband think your visit ridiculous? Was he put\nout? When are you going to take leave? You had better go, I have made\nevery provision for you. I have brought you a good carriage. It is at\nyour service. This is the way I requite you, my dear friend. You may\nrely on me in the future, for a man is grateful for such services as\nyours.\"\n\nThese last words gave me the key to the whole mystery, and I saw how I\nstood.\n\n\"But why should you have come so soon?\" I asked him; \"it would have\nbeen more prudent to have waited a few days.\"\n\n\"I foresaw that; and it is only chance that has brought me here. I am\nsupposed to be on my way back from a neighboring country house. But\nhas not Madame de T----- taken you into her secret? I am surprised at\nher want of confidence, after all you have done for us.\"\n\n\"My dear friend,\" I replied, \"she doubtless had her reasons. Perhaps I\ndid not play my part very well.\"\n\n\"Has everything been very pleasant? Tell me the particulars; come,\ntell me.\"\n\n\"Now wait a moment. I did not know that this was to be a comedy; and\nalthough Madame de T----- gave me a part in the play--\"\n\n\"It wasn't a very nice one.\"\n\n\"Do not worry yourself; there are no bad parts for good actors.\"\n\n\"I understand, you acquitted yourself well.\"\n\n\"Admirably.\"\n\n\"And Madame de T-----?\"\n\n\"Is adorable.\"\n\n\"To think of being able to win such a woman!\" said he, stopping short\nin our walk, and looking triumphantly at me. \"Oh, what pains I have\ntaken with her! And I have at last brought her to a point where she is\nperhaps the only woman in Paris on whose fidelity a man may infallibly\ncount!\"\n\n\"You have succeeded--?\"\n\n\"Yes; in that lies my special talent. Her inconstancy was mere\nfrivolity, unrestrained imagination. It was necessary to change that\ndisposition of hers, but you have no idea of her attachment to me. But\nreally, is she not charming?\"\n\n\"I quite agree with you.\"\n\n\"And yet _entre nous_ I recognize one fault in her. Nature in giving\nher everything, has denied her that flame divine which puts the crown\non all other endowments; while she rouses in others the ardor of\npassion, she feels none herself, she is a thing of marble.\"\n\n\"I am compelled to believe you, for I have had no opportunity of\njudging, but do you think that you know that woman as well as if you\nwere her husband? It is possible to be deceived. If I had not dined\nyesterday with the veritable--I should take you--\"\n\n\"By the way, has he been good?\"\n\n\"Oh, I was received like a dog!\"\n\n\"I understand. Let us go in, let us look for Madame de T-----. She\nmust be up by this time.\"\n\n\"But should we not out of decency begin with the husband?\" I said to\nhim.\n\n\"You are right. Let us go to your room, I wish to put on a little\npowder. But tell me, did he really take you for her lover?\"\n\n\"You may judge by the way he receives me; but let us go at once to his\napartment.\"\n\nI wished to avoid having to lead him to an apartment whose whereabouts\nI did not know; but by chance we found it. The door was open and there\nI saw my _valet de chambre_ asleep on an armchair. A candle was going\nout on a table beside him. He drowsily offered a night robe to the\nmarquis. I was on pins and needles; but the marquis was in a mood to\nbe easily deceived, took the man for a mere sleepy-head, and made a\njoke of the matter. We passed on to the apartment of Monsieur de\nT-----. There was no misunderstanding the reception which he accorded\nme, and the welcome, the compliments which he addressed to the\nmarquis, whom he almost forced to stay. He wished to take him to\nmadame in order that she might insist on his staying. As for me, I\nreceived no such invitation. I was reminded that my health was\ndelicate, the country was damp, fever was in the air, and I seemed so\ndepressed that the chateau would prove too gloomy for me. The marquis\noffered me his chaise and I accepted it. The husband seemed delighted\nand we were all satisfied. But I could not refuse myself the pleasure\nof seeing Madame de T----- once more. My impatience was wonderful. My\nfriend conceived no suspicions from the late sleep of his mistress.\n\n\"Isn't this fine?\" he said to me as we followed Monsieur de T-----.\n\"He couldn't have spoken more kindly if she had dictated his words. He\nis a fine fellow. I am not in the least annoyed by this\nreconciliation; they will make a good home together, and you will\nagree with me, that he could not have chosen a wife better able to do\nthe honors.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" I replied.\n\n\"However pleasant the adventure has been,\" he went on with an air of\nmystery, \"you must be off! I will let Madame de T----- understand that\nher secret will be well kept.\"\n\n\"On that point, my friend, she perhaps counts more on me than on you;\nfor you see her sleep is not disturbed by the matter.\"\n\n\"Oh! I quite agree that there is no one like you for putting a woman\nto sleep.\"\n\n\"Yes, and a husband too, and if necessary a lover, my dear friend.\"\n\nAt last Monsieur de T----- was admitted to his wife's apartment, and\nthere we were all summoned.\n\n\"I trembled,\" said Madame de T----- to me, \"for fear you would go\nbefore I awoke, and I thank you for saving me the annoyance which that\nwould have caused me.\"\n\n\"Madame,\" I said, and she must have perceived the feeling that was in\nmy tones--\"I come to say good-bye.\"\n\nShe looked at me and at the marquis with an air of disquietude; but\nthe self-satisfied, knowing look of her lover reassured her. She\nlaughed in her sleeve with me as if she would console me as well as\nshe could, without lowering herself in my eyes.\n\n\"He has played his part well,\" the marquis said to her in a low voice,\npointing to me, \"and my gratitude--\"\n\n\"Let us drop the subject,\" interrupted Madame de T-----; \"you may be\nsure that I am well aware of all I owe him.\"\n\nAt last Monsieur de T-----, with a sarcastic remark, dismissed me; my\nfriend threw the dust in his eyes by making fun of me; and I paid back\nboth of them by expressing my admiration for Madame de T-----, who\nmade fools of us all without forfeiting her dignity. I took myself\noff; but Madame de T----- followed me, pretending to have a commission\nto give me.\n\n\"Adieu, monsieur!\" she said, \"I am indebted to you for the very great\npleasure you have given me; but I have paid you back with a beautiful\ndream,\" and she looked at me with an expression of subtle meaning.\n\"But adieu, and forever! You have plucked a solitary flower,\nblossoming in its loveliness, which no man--\"\n\nShe stopped and her thought evaporated in a sigh; but she checked the\nrising flood of sensibility and smiled significantly.\n\n\"The countess loves you,\" she said. \"If I have robbed her of some\ntransports, I give you back to her less ignorant than before. Adieu!\nDo not make mischief between my friend and me.\"\n\nShe wrung my hand and left me.\n\n\n\nMore than once the ladies who had mislaid their fans blushed as they\nlistened to the old gentleman, whose brilliant elocution won their\nindulgence for certain details which we have suppressed, as too erotic\nfor the present age; nevertheless, we may believe that each lady\ncomplimented him in private; for some time afterwards he gave to each\nof them, as also to the masculine guests, a copy of this charming\nstory, twenty-five copies of which were printed by Pierre Didot. It is\nfrom copy No. 24 that the author has transcribed this tale, hitherto\nunpublished, and, strange to say, attributed to Dorat. It has the\nmerit of yielding important lessons for husbands, while at the same\ntime it gives the celibates a delightful picture of morals in the last\ncentury.\n\n\n\n                           MEDITATION XXV.\n\n                              OF ALLIES.\n\nOf all the miseries that civil war can bring upon a country the\ngreatest lies in the appeal which one of the contestants always ends\nby making to some foreign government.\n\nUnhappily we are compelled to confess that all women make this great\nmistake, for the lover is only the first of their soldiers. It may be\na member of their family or at least a distant cousin. This\nMeditation, then, is intended to answer the inquiry, what assistance\ncan each of the different powers which influence human life give to\nyour wife? or better than that, what artifices will she resort to to\narm them against you?\n\nTwo beings united by marriage are subject to the laws of religion and\nsociety; to those of private life, and, from considerations of health,\nto those of medicine. We will therefore divide this important\nMeditation into six paragraphs:\n\n\n  1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION\n     WITH MARRIAGE.\n  2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.\n  3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.\n  4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES.\n  5. OF THE MAID.\n  6. OF THE DOCTOR.\n\n\n        1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR\n                      CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE.\n\nLa Bruyere has very wittily said, \"It is too much for a husband to\nhave ranged against him both devotion and gallantry; a woman ought to\nchoose but one of them for her ally.\"\n\nThe author thinks that La Bruyere is mistaken.\n\n\n                       2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.\n\nUp to the age of thirty the face of a woman is a book written in a\nforeign tongue, which one may still translate in spite of all the\n_feminisms_ of the idiom; but on passing her fortieth year a woman\nbecomes an insoluble riddle; and if any one can see through an old\nwoman, it is another old woman.\n\nSome diplomats have attempted on more than one occasion the diabolical\ntask of gaining over the dowagers who opposed their machinations; but\nif they have ever succeeded it was only after making enormous\nconcessions to them; for diplomats are practiced people and we do not\nthink that you can employ their recipe in dealing with your\nmother-in-law. She will be the first aid-de-camp of her daughter, for\nif the mother did not take her daughter's side, it would be one of\nthose monstrous and unnatural exceptions, which unhappily for husbands\nare extremely rare.\n\nWhen a man is so happy as to possess a mother-in-law who is\nwell-preserved, he may easily keep her in check for a certain time,\nalthough he may not know any young celibate brave enough to assail\nher. But generally husbands who have the slightest conjugal genius\nwill find a way of pitting their own mother against that of their\nwife, and in that case they will naturally neutralize each other's\npower.\n\nTo be able to keep a mother-in-law in the country while he lives in\nParis, and vice versa, is a piece of good fortune which a husband too\nrarely meets with.\n\nWhat of making mischief between the mother and the daughter?--That may\nbe possible; but in order to accomplish such an enterprise he must\nhave the metallic heart of Richelieu, who made a son and a mother\ndeadly enemies to each other. However, the jealousy of a husband who\nforbids his wife to pray to male saints and wishes her to address only\nfemale saints, would allow her liberty to see her mother.\n\nMany sons-in-law take an extreme course which settles everything,\nwhich consists in living on bad terms with their mothers-in-law. This\nunfriendliness would be very adroit policy, if it did not inevitably\nresult in drawing tighter the ties that unite mother and daughter.\nThese are about all the means which you have for resisting maternal\ninfluence in your home. As for the services which your wife can claim\nfrom her mother, they are immense; and the assistance which she may\nderive from the neutrality of her mother is not less powerful. But on\nthis point everything passes out of the domain of science, for all is\nveiled in secrecy. The reinforcements which a mother brings up in\nsupport of a daughter are so varied in nature, they depend so much on\ncircumstances, that it would be folly to attempt even a nomenclature\nfor them. Yet you may write out among the most valuable precepts of\nthis conjugal gospel, the following maxims.\n\nA husband should never let his wife visit her mother unattended.\n\nA husband ought to study all the reasons why all the celibates under\nforty who form her habitual society are so closely united by ties of\nfriendship to his mother-in-law; for, if a daughter rarely falls in\nlove with the lover of her mother, her mother has always a weak spot\nfor her daughter's lover.\n\n\n         3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.\n\nLouise de L-----, daughter of an officer killed at Wagram, had been\nthe object of Napoleon's special protection. She left Ecouen to marry\na commissary general, the Baron de V-----, who is very rich.\n\nLouise was eighteen and the baron forty. She was ordinary in face and\nher complexion could not be called white, but she had a charming\nfigure, good eyes, a small foot, a pretty hand, good taste and\nabundant intelligence. The baron, worn out by the fatigues of war and\nstill more by the excesses of a stormy youth, had one of those faces\nupon which the Republic, the Directory, the Consulate and the Empire\nseemed to have set their impress.\n\nHe became so deeply in love with his wife, that he asked and obtained\nfrom the Emperor a post at Paris, in order that he might be enabled to\nwatch over his treasure. He was as jealous as Count Almaviva, still\nmore from vanity than from love. The young orphan had married her\nhusband from necessity, and, flattered by the ascendancy she wielded\nover a man much older than herself, waited upon his wishes and his\nneeds; but her delicacy was offended from the first days of their\nmarriage by the habits and ideas of a man whose manners were tinged\nwith republican license. He was a predestined.\n\nI do not know exactly how long the baron made his honeymoon last, nor\nwhen war was declared in his household; but I believe it happened in\n1816, at a very brilliant ball given by Monsieur D-----, a\ncommissariat officer, that the commissary general, who had been\npromoted head of the department, admired the beautiful Madame B-----,\nthe wife of a banker, and looked at her much more amorously than a\nmarried man should have allowed himself to do.\n\nAt two o'clock in the morning it happened that the banker, tired of\nwaiting any longer, went home leaving his wife at the ball.\n\n\"We are going to take you home to your house,\" said the baroness to\nMadame B-----. \"Monsieur de V-----, offer your arm to Emilie!\"\n\nAnd now the baron is seated in his carriage next to a woman who,\nduring the whole evening, had been offered and had refused a thousand\nattentions, and from whom he had hoped in vain to win a single look.\nThere she was, in all the lustre of her youth and beauty, displaying\nthe whitest shoulders and the most ravishing lines of beauty. Her\nface, which still reflected the pleasures of the evening, seemed to\nvie with the brilliancy of her satin gown; her eyes to rival the blaze\nof her diamonds; and her skin to cope with the soft whiteness of the\nmarabouts which tied in her hair, set off the ebon tresses and the\nringlets dangling from her headdress. Her tender voice would stir the\nchords of the most insensible hearts; in a word, so powerfully did she\nwake up love in the human breast that Robert d'Abrissel himself would\nperhaps have yielded to her.\n\nThe baron glanced at his wife, who, overcome with fatigue, had sunk to\nsleep in a corner of the carriage. He compared, in spite of himself,\nthe toilette of Louise and that of Emilie. Now on occasions of this\nkind the presence of a wife is singularly calculated to sharpen the\nunquenchable desires of a forbidden love. Moreover, the glances of the\nbaron, directed alternately to his wife and to her friend, were easy\nto interpret, and Madame B----- interpreted them.\n\n\"Poor Louise,\" she said, \"she is overtired. Going out does not suit\nher, her tastes are so simple. At Ecouen she was always reading--\"\n\n\"And you, what used you to do?\"\n\n\"I, sir? Oh, I thought about nothing but acting comely. It was my\npassion!\"\n\n\"But why do you so rarely visit Madame de V-----? We have a country\nhouse at Saint-Prix, where we could have a comedy acted, in a little\ntheatre which I have built there.\"\n\n\"If I have not visited Madame de V-----, whose fault is it?\" she\nreplied. \"You are so jealous that you will not allow her either to\nvisit her friends or to receive them.\"\n\n\"I jealous!\" cried Monsieur de V-----, \"after four years of marriage,\nand after having had three children!\"\n\n\"Hush,\" said Emilie, striking the fingers of the baron with her fan,\n\"Louise is not asleep!\"\n\nThe carriage stopped, and the baron offered his hand to his wife's\nfair friend and helped her to get out.\n\n\"I hope,\" said Madame B-----, \"that you will not prevent Louise from\ncoming to the ball which I am giving this week.\"\n\nThe baron made her a respectful bow.\n\nThis ball was a triumph of Madame B-----'s and the ruin of the husband\nof Louise; for he became desperately enamored of Emilie, to whom he\nwould have sacrificed a hundred lawful wives.\n\nSome months after that evening on which the baron gained some hopes of\nsucceeding with his wife's friend, he found himself one morning at the\nhouse of Madame B-----, when the maid came to announce the Baroness de\nV-----.\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Emilie, \"if Louise were to see you with me at such an hour\nas this, she would be capable of compromising me. Go into that closet\nand don't make the least noise.\"\n\nThe husband, caught like a mouse in a trap, concealed himself in the\ncloset.\n\n\"Good-day, my dear!\" said the two women, kissing each other.\n\n\"Why are you come so early?\" asked Emilie.\n\n\"Oh! my dear, cannot you guess? I came to have an understanding with\nyou!\"\n\n\"What, a duel?\"\n\n\"Precisely, my dear. I am not like you, not I! I love my husband and\nam jealous of him. You! you are beautiful, charming, you have the\nright to be a coquette, you can very well make fun of B-----, to whom\nyour virtue seems to be of little importance. But as you have plenty\nof lovers in society, I beg you that you will leave me my husband. He\nis always at your house, and he certainly would not come unless you\nwere the attraction.\"\n\n\"What a very pretty jacket you have on.\"\n\n\"Do you think so? My maid made it.\"\n\n\"Then I shall get Anastasia to take a lesson from Flore--\"\n\n\"So, then, my dear, I count on your friendship to refrain from\nbringing trouble in my house.\"\n\n\"But, my child, I do not know how you can conceive that I should fall\nin love with your husband; he is coarse and fat as a deputy of the\ncentre. He is short and ugly--Ah! I will allow that he is generous,\nbut that is all you can say for him, and this is a quality which is\nall in all only to opera girls; so that you can understand, my dear,\nthat if I were choosing a lover, as you seem to suppose I am, I\nwouldn't choose an old man like your baron. If I have given him any\nhopes, if I have received him, it was certainly for the purpose of\namusing myself, and of giving you liberty; for I believed you had a\nweakness for young Rostanges.\"\n\n\"I?\" exclaimed Louise, \"God preserve me from it, my dear; he is the\nmost intolerable coxcomb in the world. No, I assure you, I love my\nhusband! You may laugh as you choose; it is true. I know it may seem\nridiculous, but consider, he has made my fortune, he is no miser, and\nhe is everything to me, for it has been my unhappy lot to be left an\norphan. Now even if I did not love him, I ought to try to preserve his\nesteem. Have I a family who will some day give me shelter?\"\n\n\"Come, my darling, let us speak no more about it,\" said Emilie,\ninterrupting her friend, \"for it tires me to death.\"\n\nAfter a few trifling remarks the baroness left.\n\n\"How is this, monsieur?\" cried Madame B-----, opening the door of the\ncloset where the baron was frozen with cold, for this incident took\nplace in winter; \"how is this? Aren't you ashamed of yourself for not\nadoring a little wife who is so interesting? Don't speak to me of\nlove; you may idolize me, as you say you do, for a certain time, but\nyou will never love me as you love Louise. I can see that in your\nheart I shall never outweigh the interest inspired by a virtuous wife,\nchildren, and a family circle. I should one day be deserted and become\nthe object of your bitter reflections. You would coldly say of me 'I\nhave had that woman!' That phrase I have heard pronounced by men with\nthe most insulting indifference. You see, monsieur, that I reason in\ncold blood, and that I do not love you, because you never would be\nable to love me.\"\n\n\"What must I do then to convince you of my love?\" cried the baron,\nfixing his gaze on the young woman.\n\nShe had never appeared to him so ravishingly beautiful as at that\nmoment, when her soft voice poured forth a torrent of words whose\nsternness was belied by the grace of her gestures, by the pose of her\nhead and by her coquettish attitude.\n\n\"Oh, when I see Louise in possession of a lover,\" she replied, \"when I\nknow that I am taking nothing away from her, and that she has nothing\nto regret in losing your affection; when I am quite sure that you love\nher no longer, and have obtained certain proof of your indifference\ntowards her--Oh, then I may listen to you!--These words must seem\nodious to you,\" she continued in an earnest voice; \"and so indeed they\nare, but do not think that they have been pronounced by me. I am the\nrigorous mathematician who makes his deductions from a preliminary\nproposition. You are married, and do you deliberately set about making\nlove to some one else? I should be mad to give any encouragement to a\nman who cannot be mine eternally.\"\n\n\"Demon!\" exclaimed the husband. \"Yes, you are a demon, and not a\nwoman!\"\n\n\"Come now, you are really amusing!\" said the young woman as she seized\nthe bell-rope.\n\n\"Oh! no, Emilie,\" continued the lover of forty, in a calmer voice. \"Do\nnot ring; stop, forgive me! I will sacrifice everything for you.\"\n\n\"But I do not promise you anything!\" she answered quickly with a\nlaugh.\n\n\"My God! How you make me suffer!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"Well, and have not you in your life caused the unhappiness of more\nthan one person?\" she asked. \"Remember all the tears which have been\nshed through you and for you! Oh, your passion does not inspire me\nwith the least pity. If you do not wish to make me laugh, make me\nshare your feelings.\"\n\n\"Adieu, madame, there is a certain clemency in your sternness. I\nappreciate the lesson you have taught me. Yes, I have many faults to\nexpiate.\"\n\n\"Well then, go and repent of them,\" she said with a mocking smile; \"in\nmaking Louise happy you will perform the rudest penance in your\npower.\"\n\nThey parted. But the love of the baron was too violent to allow of\nMadame B-----'s harshness failing to accomplish her end, namely, the\nseparation of the married couple.\n\nAt the end of some months the Baron de V----- and his wife lived\napart, though they lived in the same mansion. The baroness was the\nobject of universal pity, for in public she always did justice to her\nhusband and her resignation seemed wonderful. The most prudish women\nof society found nothing to blame in the friendship which united\nLouise to the young Rostanges. And all was laid to the charge of\nMonsieur de V-----'s folly.\n\nWhen this last had made all the sacrifices that a man could make for\nMadame B-----, his perfidious mistress started for the waters of Mount\nDore, for Switzerland and for Italy, on the pretext of seeking the\nrestoration of her health.\n\nThe baron died of inflammation of the liver, being attended during his\nsickness by the most touching ministrations which his wife could\nlavish upon him; and judging from the grief which he manifested at\nhaving deserted her, he seemed never to have suspected her\nparticipation in the plan which had been his ruin.\n\nThis anecdote, which we have chosen from a thousand others,\nexemplifies the services which two women can render each other.\n\nFrom the words--\"Let me have the pleasure of bringing my husband\" up\nto the conception of the drama, whose denouement was inflammation of\nthe liver, every female perfidy was assembled to work out the end.\nCertain incidents will, of course, be met with which diversify more or\nless the typical example which we have given, but the march of the\ndrama is almost always the same. Moreover a husband ought always to\ndistrust the woman friends of his wife. The subtle artifices of these\nlying creatures rarely fail of their effect, for they are seconded by\ntwo enemies, who always keep close to a man--and these are vanity and\ndesire.\n\n\n                      4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES.\n\nThe man who hastens to tell another man that he has dropped a thousand\nfranc bill from his pocket-book, or even that the handkerchief is\ncoming out of his pocket, would think it a mean thing to warn him that\nsome one was carrying off his wife. There is certainly something\nextremely odd in this moral inconsistency, but after all it admits of\nexplanation. Since the law cannot exercise any interference with\nmatrimonial rights, the citizens have even less right to constitute\nthemselves a conjugal police; and when one restores a thousand franc\nbill to him who has lost it, he acts under a certain kind of\nobligation, founded on the principle which says, \"Do unto others as ye\nwould they should do unto you!\"\n\nBut by what reasoning can justification be found for the help which\none celibate never asks in vain, but always receives from another\ncelibate in deceiving a husband, and how shall we qualify the\nrendering of such help? A man who is incapable of assisting a gendarme\nin discovering an assassin, has no scruple in taking a husband to a\ntheatre, to a concert or even to a questionable house, in order to\nhelp a comrade, whom he would not hesitate to kill in a duel\nto-morrow, in keeping an assignation, the result of which is to\nintroduce into a family a spurious child, and to rob two brothers of a\nportion of their fortune by giving them a co-heir whom they never\nperhaps would otherwise have had; or to effect the misery of three\nhuman beings. We must confess that integrity is a very rare virtue,\nand, very often, the man that thinks he has most actually has least.\nFamilies have been divided by feuds, and brothers have been murdered,\nwhich events would never have taken place if some friend had refused\nto perform what passes to the world as a harmless trick.\n\nIt is impossible for a man to be without some hobby or other, and all\nof us are devoted either to hunting, fishing, gambling, music, money,\nor good eating. Well, your ruling passion will always be an accomplice\nin the snare which a lover sets for you, the invisible hand of this\npassion will direct your friends, or his, whether they consent or not,\nto play a part in the little drama when they want to take you away\nfrom home, or to induce you to leave your wife to the mercy of\nanother. A lover will spend two whole months, if necessary, in\nplanning the construction of the mouse-trap.\n\nI have seen the most cunning men on earth thus taken in.\n\nThere was a certain retired lawyer of Normandy. He lived in the little\ntown of B-----, where a regiment of the chasseurs of Cantal were\ngarrisoned. A fascinating officer of this regiment had fallen in love\nwith the wife of this pettifogger, and the regiment was leaving before\nthe two lovers had been able to enjoy the least privacy. It was the\nfourth military man over whom the lawyer had triumphed. As he left the\ndinner-table one evening, about six o'clock, the husband took a walk\non the terrace of his garden from which he could see the whole country\nside. The officers arrived at this moment to take leave of him.\nSuddenly the flame of a conflagration burst forth on the horizon.\n\"Heavens! La Daudiniere is on fire!\" exclaimed the major. He was an\nold simple-minded soldier, who had dined at home. Every one mounted\nhorse. The young wife smiled as she found herself alone, for her\nlover, hidden in the coppice, had said to her, \"It is a straw stack on\nfire!\" The flank of the husband was turned with all the more facility\nin that a fine courser was provided for him by the captain, and with a\ndelicacy very rare in the cavalry, the lover actually sacrificed a few\nmoments of his happiness in order to catch up with the cavalcade, and\nreturn in company with the husband.\n\nMarriage is a veritable duel, in which persistent watchfulness is\nrequired in order to triumph over an adversary; for, if you are\nunlucky enough to turn your head, the sword of the celibate will\npierce you through and through.\n\n\n                           5. OF THE MAID.\n\nThe prettiest waiting-maid I have ever seen is that of Madame V----y,\na lady who to-day plays at Paris a brilliant part among the most\nfashionable women, and passes for a wife who keeps on excellent terms\nwith her husband. Mademoiselle Celestine is a person whose points of\nbeauty are so numerous that, in order to describe her, it would be\nnecessary to translate the thirty verses which we are told form an\ninscription in the seraglio of the Grand Turk and contain each of them\nan excellent description of one of the thirty beauties of women.\n\n\"You show a great deal of vanity in keeping near you such an\naccomplished creature,\" said a lady to the mistress of the house.\n\n\"Ah! my dear, some day perhaps you will find yourself jealous of me in\npossessing Celestine.\"\n\n\"She must be endowed with very rare qualities, I suppose? She perhaps\ndresses you well?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, very badly!\"\n\n\"She sews well?\"\n\n\"She never touches her needle.\"\n\n\"She is faithful?\"\n\n\"She is one of those whose fidelity costs more than the most cunning\ndishonesty.\"\n\n\"You astonish me, my dear; she is then your foster-sister?\"\n\n\"Not at all; she is positively good for nothing, but she is more\nuseful to me than any other member of my household. If she remains\nwith me ten years, I have promised her twenty thousand francs. It will\nbe money well earned, and I shall not forget to give it!\" said the\nyoung woman, nodding her head with a meaning gesture.\n\nAt last the questioner of Madame V----y understood.\n\nWhen a woman has no friend of her own sex intimate enough to assist\nher in proving false to marital love, her maid is a last resource\nwhich seldom fails in bringing about the desired result.\n\nOh! after ten years of marriage to find under his roof, and to see all\nthe time, a young girl of from sixteen to eighteen, fresh, dressed\nwith taste, the treasures of whose beauty seem to breathe defiance,\nwhose frank bearing is irresistibly attractive, whose downcast eyes\nseem to fear you, whose timid glance tempts you, and for whom the\nconjugal bed has no secrets, for she is at once a virgin and an\nexperienced woman! How can a man remain cold, like St. Anthony, before\nsuch powerful sorcery, and have the courage to remain faithful to the\ngood principles represented by a scornful wife, whose face is always\nstern, whose manners are always snappish, and who frequently refuses\nto be caressed? What husband is stoical enough to resist such fires,\nsuch frosts? There, where you see a new harvest of pleasure, the young\ninnocent sees an income, and your wife her liberty. It is a little\nfamily compact, which is signed in the interest of good will.\n\nIn this case, your wife acts with regard to marriage as young\nfashionables do with regard to their country. If they are drawn for\nthe army, they buy a man to carry the musket, to die in their place\nand to spare them the hardships of military life.\n\nIn compromises of this sort there is not a single woman who does not\nknow how to put her husband in the wrong. I have noticed that, by a\nsupreme stroke of diplomacy, the majority of wives do not admit their\nmaids into the secret of the part which they give them to play. They\ntrust to nature, and assume an affected superiority over the lover and\nhis mistress.\n\nThese secret perfidies of women explain to a great degree the odd\nfeatures of married life which are to be observed in the world; and I\nhave heard women discuss, with profound sagacity, the dangers which\nare inherent in this terrible method of attack, and it is necessary to\nknow thoroughly both the husband and the creature to whom he is to be\nabandoned, in order to make successful use of her. Many a woman, in\nthis connection, has been the victim of her own calculations.\n\nMoreover, the more impetuous and passionate a husband shows himself,\nthe less will a woman dare to employ this expedient; but a husband\ncaught in this snare will never have anything to say to his stern\nbetter-half, when the maid, giving evidence of the fault she has\ncommitted, is sent into the country with an infant and a dowry.\n\n\n                          6. OF THE DOCTOR.\n\nThe doctor is one of the most potent auxiliaries of an honest woman,\nwhen she wishes to acquire a friendly divorce from her husband. The\nservices that the doctor renders, most of the time without knowing it,\nto a woman, are of such importance that there does not exist a single\nhouse in France where the doctor is chosen by any one but the wife.\n\nAll doctors know what great influence women have on their reputation;\nthus we meet with few doctors who do not study to please the ladies.\nWhen a man of talent has become celebrated it is true that he does not\nlend himself to the crafty conspiracies which women hatch; but without\nknowing it he becomes involved in them.\n\nI suppose that a husband taught by the adventures of his own youth\nmakes up his mind to pick out a doctor for his wife, from the first\ndays of his marriage. So long as his feminine adversary fails to\nconceive the assistance that she may derive from this ally, she will\nsubmit in silence; but later on, if all her allurements fail to win\nover the man chosen by her husband, she will take a more favorable\nopportunity to give her husband her confidence, in the following\nremarkable manner.\n\n\"I don't like the way in which the doctor feels my pulse!\"\n\nAnd of course the doctor is dropped.\n\nThus it happens that either a woman chooses her doctor, wins over the\nman who has been imposed upon her, or procures his dismissal. But this\ncontest is very rare; the majority of young men who marry are\nacquainted with none but beardless doctors whom they have no anxiety\nto procure for their wives, and almost always the Esculapius of the\nhousehold is chosen by the feminine power. Thus it happens that some\nfine morning the doctor, when he leaves the chamber of madame, who has\nbeen in bed for a fortnight, is induced by her to say to you:\n\n\"I do not say that the condition of madame presents any serious\nsymptoms; but this constant drowsiness, this general listlessness, and\nher natural tendency to a spinal affection demand great care. Her\nlymph is inspissated. She wants a change of air. She ought to be sent\neither to the waters of Bareges or to the waters of Plombieres.\"\n\n\"All right, doctor.\"\n\nYou allow your wife to go to Plombieres; but she goes there because\nCaptain Charles is quartered in the Vosges. She returns in capital\nhealth and the waters of Plombieres have done wonders for her. She has\nwritten to you every day, she has lavished upon you from a distance\nevery possible caress. The danger of a spinal affection has utterly\ndisappeared.\n\nThere is extant a little pamphlet, whose publication was prompted\ndoubtless by hate. It was published in Holland, and it contains some\nvery curious details of the manner in which Madame de Maintenon\nentered into an understanding with Fagon, for the purposes of\ncontrolling Louis XIV. Well, some morning your doctor will threaten\nyou, as Fagon threatened his master, with a fit of apoplexy, if you do\nnot diet yourself. This witty work of satire, doubtless the production\nof some courtier, entitled \"Madame de Saint Tron,\" has been\ninterpreted by the modern author who has become proverbial as \"the\nyoung doctor.\" But his delightful sketch is very much superior to the\nwork whose title I cite for the benefit of the book-lovers, and we\nhave great pleasure in acknowledging that the work of our clever\ncontemporary has prevented us, out of regard for the glory of the\nseventeenth century, from publishing the fragment of the old pamphlet.\n\nVery frequently a doctor becomes duped by the judicious manoeuvres of\na young and delicate wife, and comes to you with the announcement:\n\n\"Sir, I would not wish to alarm madame with regard to her condition;\nbut I will advise you, if you value her health, to keep her in perfect\ntranquillity. The irritation at this moment seems to threaten the\nchest, and we must gain control of it; there is need of rest for her,\nperfect rest; the least agitation might change the seat of the malady.\nAt this crisis, the prospect of bearing a child would be fatal to\nher.\"\n\n\"But, doctor--\"\n\n\"Ah, yes! I know that!\"\n\nHe laughs and leaves the house.\n\nLike the rod of Moses, the doctor's mandate makes and unmakes\ngenerations. The doctor will restore you to your marriage bed with the\nsame arguments that he used in debarring you. He treats your wife for\ncomplaints which she has not, in order to cure her of those which she\nhas, and all the while you have no idea of it; for the scientific\njargon of doctors can only be compared to the layers in which they\nenvelop their pills.\n\nAn honest woman in her chamber with the doctor is like a minister sure\nof a majority; she has it in her power to make a horse, or a carriage,\naccording to her good pleasure and her taste; she will send you away\nor receive you, as she likes. Sometimes she will pretend to be ill in\norder to have a chamber separate from yours; sometimes she will\nsurround herself with all the paraphernalia of an invalid; she will\nhave an old woman for a nurse, regiments of vials and of bottles, and,\nenvironed by these ramparts, will defy you by her invalid airs. She\nwill talk to you in such a depressing way of the electuaries and of\nthe soothing draughts which she has taken, of the agues which she has\nhad, of her plasters and cataplasms, that she will fill you with\ndisgust at these sickly details, if all the time these sham sufferings\nare not intended to serve as engines by means of which, eventually, a\nsuccessful attack may be made on that singular abstraction known as\n_your honor_.\n\nIn this way your wife will be able to fortify herself at every point\nof contact which you possess with the world, with society and with\nlife. Thus everything will take arms against you, and you will be\nalone among all these enemies. But suppose that it is your\nunprecedented privilege to possess a wife who is without religious\nconnections, without parents or intimate friends; that you have\npenetration enough to see through all the tricks by which your wife's\nlover tries to entrap you; that you still have sufficient love for\nyour fair enemy to resist all the Martons of the earth; that, in fact,\nyou have for your doctor a man who is so celebrated that he has no\ntime to listen to the maunderings of your wife; or that if your\nEsculapius is madame's vassal, you demand a consultation, and an\nincorruptible doctor intervenes every time the favorite doctor\nprescribes a remedy that disquiets you; even in that case, your\nprospects will scarcely be more brilliant. In fact, even if you do not\nsuccumb to this invasion of allies, you must not forget that, so far,\nyour adversary has not, so to speak, struck the decisive blow. If you\nhold out still longer, your wife, having flung round you thread upon\nthread, as a spider spins his web, an invisible net, will resort to\nthe arms which nature has given her, which civilization has perfected,\nand which will be treated of in the next Meditation.\n\n\n\n                           MEDITATION XXVI.\n\n                        OF DIFFERENT WEAPONS.\n\nA weapon is anything which is used for the purpose of wounding. From\nthis point of view, some sentiments prove to be the most cruel weapons\nwhich man can employ against his fellow man. The genius of Schiller,\nlucid as it was comprehensive, seems to have revealed all the\nphenomena which certain ideas bring to light in the human organization\nby their keen and penetrating action. A man may be put to death by a\nthought. Such is the moral of those heartrending scenes, when in _The\nBrigands_ the poet shows a young man, with the aid of certain ideas,\nmaking such powerful assaults on the heart of an old man, that he ends\nby causing the latter's death. The time is not far distant when\nscience will be able to observe the complicated mechanism of our\nthoughts and to apprehend the transmission of our feelings. Some\ndeveloper of the occult sciences will prove that our intellectual\norganization constitutes nothing more than a kind of interior man, who\nprojects himself with less violence than the exterior man, and that\nthe struggle which may take place between two such powers as these,\nalthough invisible to our feeble eyes, is not a less mortal struggle\nthan that in which our external man compels us to engage.\n\nBut these considerations belong to a different department of study\nfrom that in which we are now engaged; these subjects we intend to\ndeal with in a future publication; some of our friends are already\nacquainted with one of the most important,--that, namely, entitled\n\"THE PATHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE, _or Meditations mathematical, physical,\nchemical and transcendental on the manifestations of thought, taken\nunder all the forms which are produced by the state of society,\nwhether by living, marriage, conduct, veterinary medicine, or by\nspeech and action, etc._,\" in which all these great questions are\nfully discussed. The aim of this brief metaphysical observation is\nonly to remind you that the higher classes of society reason too well\nto admit of their being attacked by any other than intellectual arms.\n\nAlthough it is true that tender and delicate souls are found enveloped\nin a body of metallic hardness, at the same time there are souls of\nbronze enveloped in bodies so supple and capricious that their grace\nattracts the friendship of others, and their beauty calls for a\ncaress. But if you flatter the exterior man with your hand, the _Homo\nduplex_, the interior man, to use an expression of Buffon, immediately\nrouses himself and rends you with his keen points of contact.\n\nThis description of a special class of human creatures, which we hope\nyou will not run up against during your earthly journey, presents a\npicture of what your wife may be to you. Every one of the sentiments\nwhich nature has endowed your heart with, in their gentlest form, will\nbecome a dagger in the hand of your wife. You will be stabbed every\nmoment, and you will necessarily succumb; for your love will flow like\nblood from every wound.\n\nThis is the last struggle, but for her it also means victory.\n\nIn order to carry out the distinction which we think we have\nestablished among three sorts of feminine temperament, we will divide\nthis Meditation into three parts, under the following titles:\n\n\n  1. OF HEADACHES.\n  2. OF NERVOUS AFFECTATIONS.\n  3. OF MODESTY, IN ITS CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE.\n\n\n                           1. OF HEADACHES.\n\nWomen are constantly the dupes or the victims of excessive\nsensibility; but we have already demonstrated that with the greater\nnumber of them this delicacy of soul must needs, almost without their\nknowing it, receive many rude blows, from the very fact of their\nmarriage. (See Meditations entitled _The Predestined_ and _Of the\nHoneymoon_.) Most of the means of defence instinctively employed by\nhusbands are nothing but traps set for the liveliness of feminine\naffections.\n\nNow the moment comes when the wife, during the Civil War, traces by a\nsingle act of thought the history of her moral life, and is irritated\non perceiving the prodigious way in which you have taken advantage of\nher sensibility. It is very rarely that women, moved either by an\ninnate feeling for revenge, which they themselves can never explain,\nor by their instinct of domination, fail to discover that this quality\nin their natural machinery, when brought into play against the man, is\ninferior to no other instrument for obtaining ascendancy over him.\n\nWith admirable cleverness, they proceed to find out what chords in the\nhearts of their husbands are most easily touched; and when once they\ndiscover this secret, they eagerly proceed to put it into practice;\nthen, like a child with a mechanical toy, whose spring excites their\ncuriosity, they go on employing it, carelessly calling into play the\nmovements of the instrument, and satisfied simply with their success\nin doing so. If they kill you, they will mourn over you with the best\ngrace in the world, as the most virtuous, the most excellent, the most\nsensible of men.\n\nIn this way your wife will first arm herself with that generous\nsentiment which leads us to respect those who are in pain. The man\nmost disposed to quarrel with a woman full of life and health becomes\nhelpless before a woman who is weak and feeble. If your wife has not\nattained the end of her secret designs, by means of those various\nmethods already described, she will quickly seize this all-powerful\nweapon. In virtue of this new strategic method, you will see the young\ngirl, so strong in life and beauty, whom you had wedded in her flower,\nmetamorphosing herself into a pale and sickly woman.\n\nNow headache is an affection which affords infinite resources to a\nwoman. This malady, which is the easiest of all to feign, for it is\ndestitute of any apparent symptom, merely obliges her to say: \"I have\na headache.\" A woman trifles with you and there is no one in the world\nwho can contradict her skull, whose impenetrable bones defy touch or\nocular test. Moreover, headache is, in our opinion, the queen of\nmaladies, the pleasantest and the most terrible weapon employed by\nwives against their husbands. There are some coarse and violent men\nwho have been taught the tricks of women by their mistresses, in the\nhappy hours of their celibacy, and so flatter themselves that they are\nnever to be caught by this vulgar trap. But all their efforts, all\ntheir arguments end by being vanquished before the magic of these\nwords: \"I have a headache.\" If a husband complains, or ventures on a\nreproach, if he tries to resist the power of this _Il buondo cani_ of\nmarriage, he is lost.\n\nImagine a young woman, voluptuously lying on a divan, her head softly\nsupported by a cushion, one hand hanging down; on a small table close\nat hand is her glass of lime-water. Now place by her side a burly\nhusband. He has made five or six turns round the room; but each time\nhe has turned on his heels to begin his walk all over again, the\nlittle invalid has made a slight movement of her eyebrows in a vain\nattempt to remind him that the slightest noise fatigues her. At last\nhe musters all his courage and utters a protest against her pretended\nmalady, in the bold phrase:\n\n\"And have you really a headache?\"\n\nAt these words the young woman slightly raises her languid head, lifts\nan arm, which feebly falls back again upon her divan, raises her eyes\nto the ceiling, raises all that she has power to raise; then darting\nat you a leaden glance, she says in a voice of remarkable feebleness:\n\n\"Oh! What can be the matter with me? I suffer the agonies of death!\nAnd this is all the comfort you give me! Ah! you men, it is plainly\nseen that nature has not given you the task of bringing children into\nthe world. What egoists and tyrants you are! You take us in all the\nbeauty of our youth, fresh, rosy, with tapering waist, and then all is\nwell! When your pleasures have ruined the blooming gifts which we\nreceived from nature, you never forgive us for having forfeited them\nto you! That was all understood. You will allow us to have neither the\nvirtues nor the sufferings of our condition. You must needs have\nchildren, and we pass many nights in taking care of them. But\nchild-bearing has ruined our health, and left behind the germs of\nserious maladies.--Oh, what pain I suffer! There are few women who are\nnot subject to headaches; but your wife must be an exception. You even\nlaugh at our sufferings; that is generosity!--please don't walk about\n--I should not have expected this of you!--Stop the clock; the click\nof the pendulum rings in my head. Thanks! Oh, what an unfortunate\ncreature I am! Have you a scent-bottle with you? Yes, oh! for pity's\nsake, allow me to suffer in peace, and go away; for this scent splits\nmy head!\"\n\nWhat can you say in reply? Do you not hear within you a voice which\ncries, \"And what if she is actually suffering?\" Moreover, almost all\nhusbands evacuate the field of battle very quietly, while their wives\nwatch them from the corner of their eyes, marching off on tip-toe and\nclosing the door quietly on the chamber henceforth to be considered\nsacred by them.\n\nSuch is the headache, true or false, which is patronized at your home.\nThen the headache begins to play a regular role in the bosom of your\nfamily. It is a theme on which a woman can play many admirable\nvariations. She sets it forth in every key. With the aid of the\nheadache alone a wife can make a husband desperate. A headache seizes\nmadame when she chooses, where she chooses, and as much as she\nchooses. There are headaches of five days, of ten minutes, periodic or\nintermittent headaches.\n\nYou sometimes find your wife in bed, in pain, helpless, and the blinds\nof her room are closed. The headache has imposed silence on every one,\nfrom the regions of the porter's lodge, where he is cutting wood, even\nto the garret of your groom, from which he is throwing down innocent\nbundles of straw. Believing in this headache, you leave the house, but\non your return you find that madame has decamped! Soon madame returns,\nfresh and ruddy:\n\n\"The doctor came,\" she says, \"and advised me to take exercise, and I\nfind myself much better!\"\n\nAnother day you wish to enter madame's room.\n\n\"Oh, sir,\" says the maid, showing the most profound astonishment,\n\"madame has her usual headache, and I have never seen her in such\npain! The doctor has been sent for.\"\n\n\"You are a happy man,\" said Marshal Augereau to General R-----, \"to\nhave such a pretty wife!\"\n\n\"To have!\" replied the other. \"If I have my wife ten days in the year,\nthat is about all. These confounded women have always either the\nheadache or some other thing!\"\n\nThe headache in France takes the place of the sandals, which, in\nSpain, the Confessor leaves at the door of the chamber in which he is\nwith his penitent.\n\nIf your wife, foreseeing some hostile intentions on your part, wishes\nto make herself as inviolable as the charter, she immediately gets up\na little headache performance. She goes to bed in a most deliberate\nfashion, she utters shrieks which rend the heart of the hearer. She\ngoes gracefully through a series of gesticulations so cleverly\nexecuted that you might think her a professional contortionist. Now\nwhat man is there so inconsiderate as to dare to speak to a suffering\nwoman about desires which, in him, prove the most perfect health?\nPoliteness alone demands of him perfect silence. A woman knows under\nthese circumstances that by means of this all-powerful headache, she\ncan at her will paste on her bed the placard which sends back home the\namateurs who have been allured by the announcement of the Comedie\nFrancaise, when they read the words: \"Closed through the sudden\nindisposition of Mademoiselle Mars.\"\n\nO headache, protectress of love, tariff of married life, buckler\nagainst which all married desires expire! O mighty headache! Can it be\npossible that lovers have never sung thy praises, personified thee, or\nraised thee to the skies? O magic headache, O delusive headache, blest\nbe the brain that first invented thee! Shame on the doctor who shall\nfind out thy preventive! Yes, thou art the only ill that women bless,\ndoubtless through gratitude for the good things thou dispensest to\nthem, O deceitful headache! O magic headache!\n\n\n                     2. OF NERVOUS AFFECTATIONS.\n\nThere is, however, a power which is superior even to that of the\nheadache; and we must avow to the glory of France, that this power is\none of the most recent which has been won by Parisian genius. As in\nthe case with all the most useful discoveries of art and science, no\none knows to whose intellect it is due. Only, it is certain that it\nwas towards the middle of the last century that \"Vapors\" made their\nfirst appearance in France. Thus while Papin was applying the force of\nvaporized water in mechanical problems, a French woman, whose name\nunhappily is unknown, had the glory of endowing her sex with the\nfaculty of vaporizing their fluids. Very soon the prodigious influence\nobtained by vapors was extended to the nerves; it was thus in passing\nfrom fibre to fibre that the science of neurology was born. This\nadmirable science has since then led such men as Philips and other\nclever physiologists to the discovery of the nervous fluid in its\ncirculation; they are now perhaps on the eve of identifying its\norgans, and the secret of its origin and of its evaporation. And thus,\nthanks to certain quackeries of this kind, we may be enabled some day\nto penetrate the mysteries of that unknown power which we have already\ncalled more than once in the present book, the _Will_. But do not let\nus trespass on the territory of medical philosophy. Let us consider\nthe nerves and the vapors solely in their connection with marriage.\n\nVictims of Neurosis (a pathological term under which are comprised all\naffections of the nervous system) suffer in two ways, as far as\nmarried women are concerned; for our physiology has the loftiest\ndisdain for medical classifications. Thus we recognize only:\n\n\n  1. CLASSIC NEUROSIS.\n  2. ROMANTIC NEUROSIS.\n\n\nThe classic affection has something bellicose and excitable on it.\nThose who thus suffer are as violent in their antics as pythonesses,\nas frantic as _monads_, as excited as _bacchantes_; it is a revival of\nantiquity, pure and simple.\n\nThe romantic sufferers are mild and plaintive as the ballads sung amid\nthe mists of Scotland. They are pallid as young girls carried to their\nbier by the dance or by love; they are eminently elegiac and they\nbreathe all the melancholy of the North.\n\nThat woman with black hair, with piercing eye, with high color, with\ndry lips and a powerful hand, will become excited and convulsive; she\nrepresents the genius of classic neurosis; while a young blonde woman,\nwith white skin, is the genius of romantic neurosis; to one belongs\nthe empire gained by nerves, to the other the empire gained by vapors.\n\nVery frequently a husband, when he comes home, finds his wife in\ntears.\n\n\"What is the matter, my darling?\"\n\n\"It is nothing.\"\n\n\"But you are in tears!\"\n\n\"I weep without knowing why. I am quite sad! I saw faces in the\nclouds, and those faces never appear to me except on the eve of some\ndisaster--I think I must be going to die.\"\n\nThen she talks to you in a low voice of her dead father, of her dead\nuncle, of her dead grandfather, of her dead cousin. She invokes all\nthese mournful shades, she feels as if she had all their sicknesses,\nshe is attacked with all the pains they felt, she feels her heart\npalpitate with excessive violence, she feels her spleen swelling. You\nsay to yourself, with a self-satisfied air:\n\n\"I know exactly what this is all about!\"\n\nAnd then you try to soothe her; but you find her a woman who yawns\nlike an open box, who complains of her chest, who begins to weep anew,\nwho implores you to leave her to her melancholy and her mournful\nmemories. She talks to you about her last wishes, follows her own\nfuneral, is buried, plants over her tomb the green canopy of a weeping\nwillow, and at the very time when you would like to raise a joyful\nepithalamium, you find an epitaph to greet you all in black. Your wish\nto console her melts away in the cloud of Ixion.\n\nThere are women of undoubted fidelity who in this way extort from\ntheir feeling husbands cashmere shawls, diamonds, the payment of their\ndebts, or the rent of a box at the theatre; but almost always vapors\nare employed as decisive weapons in Civil War.\n\nOn the plea of her spinal affection or of her weak chest, a woman\ntakes pains to seek out some distraction or other; you see her\ndressing herself in soft fabrics like an invalid with all the symptoms\nof spleen; she never goes out because an intimate friend, her mother\nor her sister, has tried to tear her away from that divan which\nmonopolizes her and on which she spends her life in improvising\nelegies. Madame is going to spend a fortnight in the country because\nthe doctor orders it. In short, she goes where she likes and does what\nshe likes. Is it possible that there can be a husband so brutal as to\noppose such desires, by hindering a wife from going to seek a cure for\nher cruel sufferings? For it has been established after many long\ndiscussions that in the nerves originate the most fearful torture.\n\nBut it is especially in bed that vapors play their part. There when a\nwoman has not a headache she has her vapors; and when she has neither\nvapors nor headache, she is under the protection of the girdle of\nVenus, which, as you know, is a myth.\n\nAmong the women who fight with you the battle of vapors, are some more\nblonde, more delicate, more full of feeling than others, and who\npossess the gift of tears. How admirably do they know how to weep!\nThey weep when they like, as they like and as much as they like. They\norganize a system of offensive warfare which consists of manifesting\nsublime resignation, and they gain victories which are all the more\nbrilliant, inasmuch as they remain all the time in excellent health.\n\nDoes a husband, irritated beyond all measure, at last express his\nwishes to them? They regard him with an air of submission, bow their\nheads and keep silence. This pantomime almost always puts a husband to\nrout. In conjugal struggles of this kind, a man prefers a woman should\nspeak and defend herself, for then he may show elation or annoyance;\nbut as for these women, not a word. Their silence distresses you and\nyou experience a sort of remorse, like the murderer who, when he finds\nhis victim offers no resistance, trembles with redoubled fear. He\nwould prefer to slay him in self-defence. You return to the subject.\nAs you draw near, your wife wipes away her tears and hides her\nhandkerchief, so as to let you see that she has been weeping. You are\nmelted, you implore your little Caroline to speak, your sensibility\nhas been touched and you forget everything; then she sobs while she\nspeaks, and speaks while she sobs. This is a sort of machine\neloquence; she deafens you with her tears, with her words which come\njerked out in confusion; it is the clapper and torrent of a mill.\n\nFrench women and especially Parisians possess in a marvelous degree\nthe secret by which such scenes are enacted, and to these scenes their\nvoices, their sex, their toilet, their manner give a wonderful charm.\nHow often do the tears upon the cheeks of these adorable actresses\ngive way to a piquant smile, when they see their husbands hasten to\nbreak the silk lace, the weak fastening of their corsets, or to\nrestore the comb which holds together the tresses of their hair and\nthe bunch of golden ringlets always on the point of falling down?\n\nBut how all these tricks of modernity pale before the genius of\nantiquity, before nervous attacks which are violent, before the\nPyrrhic dance of married life! Oh! how many hopes for a lover are\nthere in the vivacity of those convulsive movements, in the fire of\nthose glances, in the strength of those limbs, beautiful even in\ncontortion! It is then that a woman is carried away like an impetuous\nwind, darts forth like the flames of a conflagration, exhibits a\nmovement like a billow which glides over the white pebbles. She is\novercome with excess of love, she sees the future, she is the seer who\nprophesies, but above all, she sees the present moment and tramples on\nher husband, and impresses him with a sort of terror.\n\nThe sight of his wife flinging off vigorous men as if they were so\nmany feathers, is often enough to deter a man from ever striving to\nwrong her. He will be like the child who, having pulled the trigger of\nsome terrific engine, has ever afterwards an incredible respect for\nthe smallest spring. I have known a man, gentle and amiable in his\nways, whose eyes were fixed upon those of his wife, exactly as if he\nhad been put into a lion's cage, and some one had said to him that he\nmust not irritate the beast, if he would escape with his life.\n\nNervous attacks of this kind are very fatiguing and become every day\nmore rare. Romanticism, however, has maintained its ground.\n\nSometimes, we meet with phlegmatic husbands, those men whose love is\nlong enduring, because they store up their emotions, whose genius gets\nthe upper hand of these headaches and nervous attacks; but these\nsublime creatures are rare. Faithful disciples of the blessed St.\nThomas, who wished to put his finger into the wound, they are endowed\nwith an incredulity worthy of an atheist. Imperturbable in the midst\nof all these fraudulent headaches and all these traps set by neurosis,\nthey concentrate their attention on the comedy which is being played\nbefore them, they examine the actress, they search for one of the\nsprings that sets her going; and when they have discovered the\nmechanism of this display, they arm themselves by giving a slight\nimpulse to the puppet-valve, and thus easily assure themselves either\nof the reality of the disease or the artifices of these conjugal\nmummeries.\n\nBut if by study which is almost superhuman in its intensity a husband\nescapes all the artifices which lawless and untamable love suggests to\nwomen, he will beyond doubt be overcome by the employment of a\nterrible weapon, the last which a woman would resort to, for she never\ndestroys with her own hands her empire over her husband without some\nsort of repugnance. But this is a poisoned weapon as powerful as the\nfatal knife of the executioner. This reflection brings us to the last\nparagraph of the present Meditation.\n\n\n           3. OF MODESTY, IN ITS CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE.\n\nBefore taking up the subject of modesty, it may perhaps be necessary\nto inquire whether there is such a thing. Is it anything in a woman\nbut well understood coquetry? Is it anything but a sentiment that\nclaims the right, on a woman's part, to dispose of her own body as she\nchooses, as one may well believe, when we consider that half the women\nin the world go almost naked? Is it anything but a social chimera, as\nDiderot supposed, reminding us that this sentiment always gives way\nbefore sickness and before misery?\n\nJustice may be done to all these questions.\n\nAn ingenious author has recently put forth the view that men are much\nmore modest than women. He supports this contention by a great mass of\nsurgical experiences; but, in order that his conclusions merit our\nattention, it would be necessary that for a certain time men were\nsubjected to treatment by women surgeons.\n\nThe opinion of Diderot is of still less weight.\n\nTo deny the existence of modesty, because it disappears during those\ncrises in which almost all human sentiments are annihilated, is as\nunreasonable as to deny that life exists because death sooner or later\ncomes.\n\nLet us grant, then, that one sex has as much modesty as the other, and\nlet us inquire in what modesty consists.\n\nRousseau makes modesty the outcome of all those coquetries which\nfemales display before males. This opinion appears to us equally\nmistaken.\n\nThe writers of the eighteenth century have doubtless rendered immense\nservices to society; but their philosophy, based as it is upon\nsensualism, has never penetrated any deeper than the human epidermis.\nThey have only considered the exterior universe; and so they have\nretarded, for some time, the moral development of man and the progress\nof science which will always draw its first principles from the\nGospel, principles hereafter to be best understood by the fervent\ndisciples of the Son of Man.\n\nThe study of thought's mysteries, the discovery of those organs which\nbelong to the human soul, the geometry of its forces, the phenomena of\nits active power, the appreciation of the faculty by which we seem to\nhave an independent power of bodily movement, so as to transport\nourselves whither we will and to see without the aid of bodily organs,\n--in a word the laws of thought's dynamic and those of its physical\ninfluence,--these things will fall to the lot of the next century, as\ntheir portion in the treasury of human sciences. And perhaps we, of\nthe present time, are merely occupied in quarrying the enormous blocks\nwhich later on some mighty genius will employ in the building of a\nglorious edifice.\n\nThus the error of Rousseau is simply the error of his age. He explains\nmodesty by the relations of different human beings to each other\ninstead of explaining it by the moral relations of each one with\nhimself. Modesty is no more susceptible of analysis than conscience;\nand this perhaps is another way of saying that modesty is the\nconscience of the body; for while conscience directs our sentiments\nand the least movement of our thoughts towards the good, modesty\npresides over external movements. The actions which clash with our\ninterests and thus disobey the laws of conscience wound us more than\nany other; and if they are repeated call forth our hatred. It is the\nsame with acts which violate modesty in their relations to love, which\nis nothing but the expression of our whole sensibility. If extreme\nmodesty is one of the conditions on which the reality of marriage is\nbased, as we have tried to prove [See _Conjugal Catechism, Meditation\nIV._], it is evident that immodesty will destroy it. But this\nposition, which would require long deductions for the acceptance of\nthe physiologist, women generally apply, as it were, mechanically; for\nsociety, which exaggerates everything for the benefit of the exterior\nman, develops this sentiment of women from childhood, and around it\nare grouped almost every other sentiment. Moreover, the moment that\nthis boundless veil, which takes away the natural brutality from the\nleast gesture, is dragged down, woman disappears. Heart, mind, love,\ngrace, all are in ruins. In a situation where the virginal innocence\nof a daughter of Tahiti is most brilliant, the European becomes\ndetestable. In this lies the last weapon which a wife seizes, in order\nto escape from the sentiment which her husband still fosters towards\nher. She is powerful because she had made herself loathsome; and this\nwoman, who would count it as the greatest misfortune that her lover\nshould be permitted to see the slightest mystery of her toilette,\nis delighted to exhibit herself to her husband in the most\ndisadvantageous situation that can possibly be imagined.\n\nIt is by means of this rigorous system that she will try to banish you\nfrom the conjugal bed. Mrs. Shandy may be taken to mean us harm in\nbidding the father of Tristram wind up the clock; so long as your wife\nis not blamed for the pleasure she takes in interrupting you by the\nmost imperative questions. Where there formerly was movement and life\nis now lethargy and death. An act of love becomes a transaction long\ndiscussed and almost, as it were, settled by notarial seal. But we\nhave in another place shown that we never refuse to seize upon the\ncomic element in a matrimonial crisis, although here we may be\npermitted to disdain the diversion which the muse of Verville and of\nMarshall have found in the treachery of feminine manoeuvres, the\ninsulting audacity of their talk, amid the cold-blooded cynicism which\nthey exhibit in certain situations. It is too sad to laugh at, and too\nfunny to mourn over. When a woman resorts to such extreme measures,\nworlds at once separate her from her husband. Nevertheless, there are\nsome women to whom Heaven has given the gift of being charming under\nall circumstances, who know how to put a certain witty and comic grace\ninto these performances, and who have such smooth tongues, to use the\nexpression of Sully, that they obtain forgiveness for their caprices\nand their mockeries, and never estrange the hearts of their husbands.\n\nWhat soul is so robust, what man so violently in love as to persist in\nhis passion, after ten years of marriage, in presence of a wife who\nloves him no longer, who gives him proofs of this every moment, who\nrepulses him, who deliberately shows herself bitter, caustic, sickly\nand capricious, and who will abjure her vows of elegance and\ncleanliness, rather than not see her husband turn away from her; in\npresence of a wife who will stake the success of her schemes upon the\nhorror caused by her indecency?\n\nAll this, my dear sir, is so much more horrible because--\n\n\n                                XCII.\n                        LOVERS IGNORE MODESTY.\n\n\nWe have now arrived at the last infernal circle in the Divine Comedy\nof Marriage. We are at the very bottom of Hell. There is something\ninexpressibly terrible in the situation of a married woman at the\nmoment when unlawful love turns her away from her duties as mother and\nwife. As Diderot has very well put it, \"infidelity in a woman is like\nunbelief in a priest, the last extreme of human failure; for her it is\nthe greatest of social crimes, since it implies in her every other\ncrime besides, and indeed either a wife profanes her lawless love by\ncontinuing to belong to her husband, or she breaks all the ties which\nattach her to her family, by giving herself over altogether to her\nlover. She ought to choose between the two courses, for her sole\npossible excuse lies in the intensity of her love.\"\n\nShe lives then between the claims of two obligations. It is a dilemma;\nshe will work either the unhappiness of her lover, if he is sincere in\nhis passion, or that of her husband, if she is still beloved by him.\n\nIt is to this frightful dilemma of feminine life that all the strange\ninconsistencies of women's conduct is to be attributed. In this lies\nthe origin of all their lies, all their perfidies; here is the secret\nof all their mysteries. It is something to make one shudder. Moreover,\neven as simply based upon cold-blooded calculations, the conduct of a\nwoman who accepts the unhappiness which attends virtue and scorns the\nbliss which is bought by crime, is a hundred times more reasonable.\nNevertheless, almost all women will risk suffering in the future and\nages of anguish for the ecstasy of one half hour. If the human feeling\nof self-preservation, if the fear of death does not check them, how\nfruitless must be the laws which send them for two years to the\nMadelonnettes? O sublime infamy! And when one comes to think that he\nfor whom these sacrifices are to be made is one of our brethren, a\ngentleman to whom we would not trust our fortune, if we had one, a man\nwho buttons his coat just as all of us do, it is enough to make one\nburst into a roar of laughter so loud, that starting from the\nLuxembourg it would pass over the whole of Paris and startle an ass\nbrowsing in the pasture at Montmartre.\n\nIt will perhaps appear extraordinary that in speaking of marriage we\nhave touched upon so many subjects; but marriage is not only the whole\nof human life, it is the whole of two human lives. Now just as the\naddition of a figure to the drawing of a lottery multiplies the\nchances a hundredfold, so one single life united to another life\nmultiplies by a startling progression the risks of human life, which\nare in any case so manifold.\n\n\n\n                          MEDITATION XXVII.\n\n                        OF THE LAST SYMPTOMS.\n\nThe author of this book has met in the world so many people possessed\nby a fanatic passion for a knowledge of the mean time, for watches\nwith a second hand, and for exactness in the details of their\nexistence, that he has considered this Meditation too necessary for\nthe tranquillity of a great number of husbands, to be omitted. It\nwould have been cruel to leave men, who are possessed with the passion\nfor learning the hour of the day, without a compass whereby to\nestimate the last variations in the matrimonial zodiac, and to\ncalculate the precise moment when the sign of the Minotaur appears on\nthe horizon. The knowledge of conjugal time would require a whole book\nfor its exposition, so fine and delicate are the observations required\nby the task. The master admits that his extreme youth has not\npermitted him as yet to note and verify more than a few symptoms; but\nhe feels a just pride, on his arrival at the end of his difficult\nenterprise, from the consciousness that he is leaving to his\nsuccessors a new field of research; and that in a matter apparently so\ntrite, not only was there much to be said, but also very many points\nare found remaining which may yet be brought into the clear light of\nobservation. He therefore presents here without order or connection\nthe rough outlines which he has so far been able to execute, in the\nhope that later he may have leisure to co-ordinate them and to arrange\nthem in a complete system. If he has been so far kept back in the\naccomplishment of a task of supreme national importance, he believes,\nhe may say, without incurring the charge of vanity, that he has here\nindicated the natural division of those symptoms. They are necessarily\nof two kinds: the unicorns and the bicorns. The unicorn Minotaur is\nthe least mischievous. The two culprits confine themselves to a\nplatonic love, in which their passion, at least, leaves no visible\ntraces among posterity; while the bicorn Minotaur is unhappiness with\nall its fruits.\n\nWe have marked with an asterisk the symptoms which seem to concern the\nlatter kind.\n\n\n                       MINOTAURIC OBSERVATIONS.\n\n\n                                  I.\n\n*When, after remaining a long time aloof from her husband, a woman\nmakes overtures of a very marked character in order to attract his\nlove, she acts in accordance with the axiom of maritime law, which\nsays: _The flag protects the cargo_.\n\n\n                                 II.\n\nA woman is at a ball, one of her friends comes up to her and says:\n\n\"Your husband has much wit.\"\n\n\"You find it so?\"\n\n\n                                 III.\n\nYour wife discovers that it is time to send your boy to a boarding\nschool, with whom, a little time ago, she was never going to part.\n\n\n                                 IV.\n\n*In Lord Abergavenny's suit for divorce, the _valet de chambre_\ndeposed that \"the countess had such a detestation of all that belonged\nto my lord that he had very often seen her burning the scraps of paper\nwhich he had touched in her room.\"\n\n\n                                  V.\n\nIf an indolent woman becomes energetic, if a woman who formerly hated\nstudy learns a foreign language; in short, every appearance of a\ncomplete change in character is a decisive symptom.\n\n\n                                 VI.\n\nThe woman who is happy in her affections does not go much into the\nworld.\n\n\n                                 VII.\n\nThe woman who has a lover becomes very indulgent in judging others.\n\n\n                                VIII.\n\n*A husband gives to his wife a hundred crowns a month for dress; and,\ntaking everything into account, she spends at least five hundred\nfrancs without being a sou in debt; the husband is robbed every night\nwith a high hand by escalade, but without burglarious breaking in.\n\n\n                                 IX.\n\n*A married couple slept in the same bed; madame was always sick. Now\nthey sleep apart, she has no more headache, and her health becomes\nmore brilliant than ever; an alarming symptom!\n\n\n                                  X.\n\nA woman who was a sloven suddenly develops extreme nicety in her\nattire. There is a Minotaur at hand!\n\n\n                                 XI.\n\n\"Ah! my dear, I know no greater torment than not to be understood.\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear, but when one is--\"\n\n\"Oh, that scarcely ever happens.\"\n\n\"I agree with you that it very seldom does. Ah! it is great happiness,\nbut there are not two people in the world who are able to understand\nyou.\"\n\n\n                                 XII.\n\n*The day when a wife behaves nicely to her husband--all is over.\n\n\n                                XIII.\n\nI asked her: \"Where have you been, Jeanne?\"\n\n\"I have been to your friend's to get your plate that you left there.\"\n\n\"Ah, indeed! everything is still mine,\" I said. The following year I\nrepeated the question under similar circumstances.\n\n\"I have been to bring back our plate.\"\n\n\"Well, well, part of the things are still mine,\" I said. But after\nthat, when I questioned her, she spoke very differently.\n\n\"You wish to know everything, like great people, and you have only\nthree shirts. I went to get my plate from my friend's house, where I\nhad stopped.\"\n\n\"I see,\" I said, \"nothing is left me.\"\n\n\n                                 XIV.\n\nDo not trust a woman who talks of her virtue.\n\n\n                                 XV.\n\nSome one said to the Duchess of Chaulnes, whose life was despaired of:\n\n\"The Duke of Chaulnes would like to see you once more.\"\n\n\"Is he there?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Let him wait; he shall come in with the sacraments.\" This minotauric\nanecdote has been published by Chamfort, but we quote it here as\ntypical.\n\n\n                                 XVI.\n\n*Some women try to persuade their husbands that they have duties to\nperform towards certain persons.\n\n\"I am sure that you ought to pay a visit to such and such a man. . . .\nWe cannot avoid asking such and such a man to dinner.\"\n\n\n                                XVII.\n\n\"Come, my son, hold yourself straight: try to acquire good manners!\nWatch such and such a man! See how he walks! Notice the way in which\nhe dresses.\"\n\n\n                                XVIII.\n\nWhen a woman utters the name of a man but twice a day, there is\nperhaps some uncertainty about her feelings toward him--but if thrice?\n--Oh! oh!\n\n\n                                 XIX.\n\nWhen a woman goes home with a man who is neither a lawyer nor a\nminister, to the door of his apartment, she is very imprudent.\n\n\n                                 XX.\n\nIt is a terrible day when a husband fails to explain to himself the\nmotive of some action of his wife.\n\n\n                                 XXI.\n\n*The woman who allows herself to be found out deserves her fate.\n\n\n\nWhat should be the conduct of a husband, when he recognizes a last\nsymptom which leaves no doubt as to the infidelity of his wife? There\nare only two courses open; that of resignation or that of vengeance;\nthere is no third course. If vengeance is decided upon, it should be\ncomplete.\n\nThe husband who does not separate himself forever from his wife is a\nveritable simpleton. If a wife and husband think themselves fit for\nthat union of friendship which exists between men, it is odious in the\nhusband to make his wife feel his superiority over her.\n\nHere are some anecdotes, most of them as yet unpublished, which\nindicate pretty plainly, in my opinion, the different shades of\nconduct to be observed by a husband in like case.\n\nM. de Roquemont slept once a month in the chamber of his wife, and he\nused to say, as he went away:\n\n\"I wash my hands of anything that may happen.\"\n\nThere is something disgusting in that remark, and perhaps something\nprofound in its suggestion of conjugal policy.\n\nA diplomat, when he saw his wife's lover enter, left his study and,\ngoing to his wife's chamber, said to the two:\n\n\"I hope you will at least refrain from fighting.\"\n\nThis was good humor.\n\nM. de Boufflers was asked what he would do if on returning after a\nlong absence he found his wife with child?\n\n\"I would order my night dress and slippers to be taken to her room.\"\n\nThis was magnanimity.\n\n\"Madame, if this man ill treats you when you are alone, it is your own\nfault; but I will not permit him to behave ill towards you in my\npresence, for this is to fail in politeness in me.\"\n\nThis was nobility.\n\nThe sublime is reached in this connection when the square cap of the\njudge is placed by the magistrate at the foot of the bed wherein the\ntwo culprits are asleep.\n\nThere are some fine ways of taking vengeance. Mirabeau has admirably\ndescribed in one of the books he wrote to make a living the mournful\nresignation of that Italian lady who was condemned by her husband to\nperish with him in the Maremma.\n\n\n                             LAST AXIOMS.\n\n\n                                XCIII.\nIt is no act of vengeance to surprise a wife and her lover and to kill\n them locked in each other's arms; it is a great favor to them both.\n\n\n                                XCIV.\n         A husband will be best avenged by his wife's lover.\n\n\n\n                          MEDITATION XXVIII.\n\n                          OF COMPENSATIONS.\n\nThe marital catastrophe which a certain number of husbands cannot\navoid, almost always forms the closing scene of the drama. At that\npoint all around you is tranquil. Your resignation, if you are\nresigned, has the power of awakening keen remorse in the soul of your\nwife and of her lover; for their happiness teaches them the depth of\nthe wound they have inflicted upon you. You are, you may be sure, a\nthird element in all their pleasures. The principle of kindliness and\ngoodness which lies at the foundation of the human soul, is not so\neasily repressed as people think; moreover the two people who are\ncausing you tortures are precisely those for whom you wish the most\ngood.\n\nIn the conversations so sweetly familiar which link together the\npleasures of love, and form in some way to lovers the caresses of\nthought, your wife often says to your rival:\n\n\"Well, I assure you, Auguste, that in any case I should like to see my\npoor husband happy; for at bottom he is good; if he were not my\nhusband, but were only my brother, there are so many things I would do\nto please him! He loves me, and--his friendship is irksome to me.\"\n\n\"Yes, he is a fine fellow!\"\n\nThen you become an object of respect to the celibate, who would yield\nto you all the indemnity possible for the wrong he has done you; but\nhe is repelled by the disdainful pride which gives a tone to your\nwhole conversation, and is stamped upon your face.\n\nSo that actually, during the first moments of the Minotaur's arrival,\na man is like an actor who feels awkward in a theatre where he is not\naccustomed to appear. It is very difficult to bear the affront with\ndignity; but though generosity is rare, a model husband is sometimes\nfound to possess it.\n\nEventually you are little by little won over by the charming way in\nwhich your wife makes herself agreeable to you. Madame assumes a tone\nof friendship which she never henceforth abandons. The pleasant\natmosphere of your home is one of the chief compensations which\nrenders the Minotaur less odious to a husband. But as it is natural to\nman to habituate himself to the hardest conditions, in spite of the\nsentiment of outraged nobility which nothing can change, you are\ngradually induced by a fascination whose power is constantly around\nyou, to accept the little amenities of your position.\n\nSuppose that conjugal misfortune has fallen upon an epicure. He\nnaturally demands the consolations which suit his taste. His sense of\npleasure takes refuge in other gratifications, and forms other habits.\nYou shape your life in accordance with the enjoyment of other\nsensations.\n\nOne day, returning from your government office, after lingering for a\nlong time before the rich and tasteful book shop of Chevet, hovering\nin suspense between the hundred francs of expense, and the joys of a\nStrasbourg _pate de fois gras_, you are struck dumb on finding this\n_pate_ proudly installed on the sideboard of your dining-room. Is this\nthe vision offered by some gastronomic mirage? In this doubting mood\nyou approach with firm step, for a _pate_ is a living creature, and\nseem to neigh as you scent afar off the truffles whose perfumes escape\nthrough the gilded enclosure. You stoop over it two distinct times;\nall the nerve centres of your palate have a soul; you taste the\ndelights of a genuine feast, etc.; and during this ecstasy a feeling\nof remorse seizes upon you, and you go to your wife's room.\n\n\"Really, my dear girl, we have not means which warrant our buying\n_pates_.\"\n\n\"But it costs us nothing!\"\n\n\"Oh! ho!\"\n\n\"Yes, it is M. Achille's brother who sent it to him.\"\n\nYou catch sight of M. Achille in a corner. The celibate greets you, he\nis radiant on seeing that you have accepted the _pate_. You look at\nyour wife, who blushes; you stroke your beard a few times; and, as you\nexpress no thanks, the two lovers divine your acceptance of the\ncompensation.\n\nA sudden change in the ministry takes place. A husband, who is\nCouncillor of State, trembles for fear of being wiped from the roll,\nwhen the night before he had been made director-general; all the\nministers are opposed to him and he has turned Constitutionalist.\nForeseeing his disgrace he has betaken himself to Auteuil, in search\nof consolation from an old friend who quotes Horace and Tibullus to\nhim. On returning home he sees the table laid as if to receive the\nmost influential men of the assembly.\n\n\"In truth, madame,\" he says with acrimony as he enters his wife's\nroom, where she is finishing her toilette, \"you seem to have lost your\nhabitual tact. This is a nice time to be giving dinner parties! Twenty\npersons will soon learn--\"\n\n\"That you are director-general!\" she cries, showing him a royal\ndespatch.\n\nHe is thunderstruck. He takes the letter, he turns it now one way, now\nanother; he opens it. He sits down and spreads it out.\n\n\"I well know,\" he says, \"that justice would be rendered me under\nwhatever ministers I served.\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear! But M. Villeplaine has answered for you with his life,\nand his eminence the Cardinal de ----- of whom he is the--\"\n\n\"M. de Villeplaine?\"\n\nThis is such a munificent recompense, that the husband adds with the\nsmile of a director-general:\n\n\"Why, deuce take it, my dear, this is your doing!\"\n\n\"Ah! don't thank me for it; Adolphe did it from personal attachment to\nyou.\"\n\nOn a certain evening a poor husband was kept at home by a pouring\nrain, or tired, perhaps, of going to spend his evening in play, at the\ncafe, or in the world, and sick of all this he felt himself carried\naway by an impulse to follow his wife to the conjugal chamber. There\nhe sank into an arm-chair and like any sultan awaited his coffee, as\nif he would say:\n\n\"Well, after all, she is my wife!\"\n\nThe fair siren herself prepares the favorite draught; she strains it\nwith special care, sweetens it, tastes it, and hands it to him; then,\nwith a smile, she ventures like a submissive odalisque to make a joke,\nwith a view to smoothing the wrinkles on the brow of her lord and\nmaster. Up to that moment he had thought his wife stupid; but on\nhearing a sally as witty as that which even you would cajole with,\nmadame, he raises his head in the way peculiar to dogs who are hunting\nthe hare.\n\n\"Where the devil did she get that--but it's a random shot!\" he says to\nhimself.\n\nFrom the pinnacle of his own greatness he makes a piquant repartee.\nMadame retorts, the conversation becomes as lively as it is\ninteresting, and this husband, a very superior man, is quite\nastonished to discover the wit of his wife, in other respects, an\naccomplished woman; the right word occurs to her with wonderful\nreadiness; her tact and keenness enable her to meet an innuendo with\ncharming originality. She is no longer the same woman. She notices the\neffect she produces upon her husband, and both to avenge herself for\nhis neglect and to win his admiration for the lover from whom she has\nreceived, so to speak, the treasures of her intellect, she exerts\nherself, and becomes actually dazzling. The husband, better able than\nany one else to appreciate a species of compensation which may have\nsome influence on his future, is led to think that the passions of\nwomen are really necessary to their mental culture.\n\nBut how shall we treat those compensations which are most pleasing to\nhusbands?\n\nBetween the moment when the last symptoms appear, and the epoch of\nconjugal peace, which we will not stop to discuss, almost a dozen\nyears have elapsed. During this interval and before the married couple\nsign the treaty which, by means of a sincere reconciliation of the\nfeminine subject with her lawful lord, consecrates their little\nmatrimonial restoration, in order to close in, as Louis XVIII said,\nthe gulf of revolutions, it is seldom that the honest woman has but\none lover. Anarchy has its inevitable phases. The stormy domination of\ntribunes is supplanted by that of the sword and the pen, for few loves\nare met with whose constancy outlives ten years. Therefore, since our\ncalculations prove that an honest woman has merely paid strictly her\nphysiological or diabolical dues by rendering but three men happy, it\nis probable that she has set foot in more than one region of love.\nSometimes it may happen that in an interregnum of love too long\nprotracted, the wife, whether from whim, temptation or the desire of\nnovelty, undertakes to seduce her own husband.\n\nImagine charming Mme. de T-----, the heroine of our Meditation of\n_Strategy_, saying with a fascinating smile:\n\n\"I never before found you so agreeable!\"\n\nBy flattery after flattery, she tempts, she rouses curiosity, she\nsoothes, she rouses in you the faintest spark of desire, she carries\nyou away with her, and makes you proud of yourself. Then the right of\nindemnifications for her husband comes. On this occasion the wife\nconfounds the imagination of her husband. Like cosmopolitan travelers\nshe tells tales of all the countries which she had traversed. She\nintersperses her conversation with words borrowed from several\nlanguages. The passionate imagery of the Orient, the unique emphasis\nof Spanish phraseology, all meet and jostle one another. She opens out\nthe treasures of her notebook with all the mysteries of coquetry, she\nis delightful, you never saw her thus before! With that remarkable art\nwhich women alone possess of making their own everything that has been\ntold them, she blends all shades and variations of character so as to\ncreate a manner peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of\nHymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a\ndozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by\nthe giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on\n_The First Symptoms_. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and\nsport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The\nPhoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself to\nand fro; the Chalcidian woman overcomes you by the witchery of her\nfine and snowy feet; the Unelmane comes and speaking the dialect of\nfair Ionia reveals the treasures of happiness unknown before, and in\nthe study of which she makes you experience but a single sensation.\n\nFilled with regret at having disdained so many charms, and frequently\ntired of finding too often as much perfidiousness in priestesses of\nVenus as in honest women, the husband sometimes hurries on by his\ngallantry the hour of reconciliation desired of worthy people. The\naftermath of bliss is gathered even with greater pleasure, perhaps,\nthan the first crop. The Minotaur took your gold, he makes restoration\nin diamonds. And really now seems the time to state a fact of the\nutmost importance. A man may have a wife without possessing her. Like\nmost husbands you had hitherto received nothing from yours, and the\npowerful intervention of the celibate was needed to make your union\ncomplete. How shall we give a name to this miracle, perhaps the only\none wrought upon a patient during his absence? Alas, my brothers, we\ndid not make Nature!\n\nBut how many other compensations, not less precious, are there, by\nwhich the noble and generous soul of the young celibate may many a\ntime purchase his pardon! I recollect witnessing one of the most\nmagnificent acts of reparation which a lover should perform toward the\nhusband he is minotaurizing.\n\nOne warm evening in the summer of 1817, I saw entering one of the\nrooms of Tortoni one of the two hundred young men whom we confidently\nstyle our friends; he was in the full bloom of his modesty. A lovely\nwoman, dressed in perfect taste, and who had consented to enter one of\nthe cool parlors devoted to people of fashion, had stepped from an\nelegant carriage which had stopped on the boulevard, and was\napproaching on foot along the sidewalk. My young friend, the celibate,\nthen appeared and offered his arm to his queen, while the husband\nfollowed holding by the hand two little boys, beautiful as cupids. The\ntwo lovers, more nimble than the father of the family, reached in\nadvance of him one of the small rooms pointed out by the attendant. In\ncrossing the vestibule the husband knocked up against some dandy, who\nclaimed that he had been jostled. Then arose a quarrel, whose\nseriousness was betrayed by the sharp tones of the altercation. The\nmoment the dandy was about to make a gesture unworthy of a\nself-respecting man, the celibate intervened, seized the dandy by the\narm, caught him off his guard, overcame and threw him to the ground; it\nwas magnificent. He had done the very thing the aggressor was\nmeditating, as he exclaimed:\n\n\"Monsieur!\"\n\nThis \"Monsieur\" was one of the finest things I have ever heard. It was\nas if the young celibate had said: \"This father of a family belongs to\nme; as I have carried off his honor, it is mine to defend him. I know\nmy duty, I am his substitute and will fight for him.\" The young woman\nbehaved superbly! Pale, and bewildered, she took the arm of her\nhusband, who continued his objurgations; without a word she led him\naway to the carriage, together with her children. She was one of those\nwomen of the aristocracy, who also know how to retain their dignity\nand self-control in the midst of violent emotions.\n\n\"O Monsieur Adolphe!\" cried the young lady as she saw her friend with\nan air of gayety take his seat in the carriage.\n\n\"It is nothing, madame, he is one of my friends; we have shaken\nhands.\"\n\nNevertheless, the next morning, the courageous celibate received a\nsword thrust which nearly proved fatal, and confined him six months to\nhis bed. The attentions of the married couple were lavished upon him.\nWhat numerous compensations do we see here! Some years afterwards, an\nold uncle of the husband, whose opinions did not fit in with those of\nthe young friend of the house, and who nursed a grudge against him on\naccount of some political discussion, undertook to have him driven\nfrom the house. The old fellow went so far as to tell his nephew to\nchoose between being his heir and sending away the presumptuous\ncelibate. It was then that the worthy stockbroker said to his uncle:\n\n\"Ah, you must never think, uncle, that you will succeed in making me\nungrateful! But if I tell him to do so this young man will let himself\nbe killed for you. He has saved my credit, he would go through fire\nand water for me, he has relieved me of my wife, he has brought me\nclients, he has procured for me almost all the business in the Villele\nloans--I owe my life to him, he is the father of my children; I can\nnever forget all this.\"\n\nIn this case the compensations may be looked upon as complete; but\nunfortunately there are compensations of all kinds. There are those\nwhich must be considered negative, deluding, and those which are both\nin one.\n\nI knew a husband of advanced years who was possessed by the demon of\ngambling. Almost every evening his wife's lover came and played with\nhim. The celibate gave him a liberal share of the pleasures which come\nfrom games of hazard, and knew how to lose to him a certain number of\nfrancs every month; but madame used to give them to him, and the\ncompensation was a deluding one.\n\nYou are a peer of France, and you have no offspring but daughters.\nYour wife is brought to bed of a boy! The compensation is negative.\n\nThe child who is to save your name from oblivion is like his mother.\nThe duchess persuades you that the child is yours. The negative\ncompensation becomes deluding.\n\nHere is one of the most charming compensations known. One morning the\nPrince de Ligne meets his wife's lover and rushes up to him, laughing\nwildly:\n\n\"My friend,\" he says to him, \"I cuckolded you, last night!\"\n\nIf some husbands attain to conjugal peace by quiet methods, and carry\nso gracefully the imaginary ensigns of matrimonial pre-eminence, their\nphilosophy is doubtless based on the _comfortabilisme_ of accepting\ncertain compensations, a _comfortabilisme_ which indifferent men\ncannot imagine. As years roll by the married couple reach the last\nstage in that artificial existence to which their union has condemned\nthem.\n\n\n\n                           MEDITATION XXIX.\n\n                          OF CONJUGAL PEACE.\n\nMy imagination has followed marriage through all the phases of its\nfantastic life in so fraternal a spirit, that I seem to have grown old\nwith the house I made my home so early in life at the commencement of\nthis work.\n\nAfter experiencing in thought the ardor of man's first passion; and\noutlining, in however imperfect a way, the principal incidents of\nmarried life; after struggling against so many wives that did not\nbelong to me, exhausting myself in conflict with so many personages\ncalled up from nothingness, and joining so many battles, I feel an\nintellectual lassitude, which makes me see everything in life hang, as\nit were, in mournful crape. I seem to have a catarrh, to look at\neverything through green spectacles, I feel as if my hands trembled,\nas if I must needs employ the second half of my existence and of my\nbook in apologizing for the follies of the first half.\n\nI see myself surrounded by tall children of whom I am not the father,\nand seated beside a wife I never married. I think I can feel wrinkles\nfurrowing my brow. The fire before which I am placed crackles, as if\nin derision, the room is ancient in its furniture; I shudder with\nsudden fright as I lay my hand upon my heart, and ask myself: \"Is\nthat, too, withered?\"\n\nI am like an old attorney, unswayed by any sentiment whatever. I never\naccept any statement unless it be confirmed, according to the poetic\nmaxim of Lord Byron, by the testimony of at least two false witnesses.\nNo face can delude me. I am melancholy and overcast with gloom. I know\nthe world and it has no more illusions for me. My closest friends have\nproved traitors. My wife and myself exchange glances of profound\nmeaning and the slightest word either of us utters is a dagger which\npierces the heart of the other through and through. I stagnate in a\ndreary calm. This then is the tranquillity of old age! The old man\npossesses in himself the cemetery which shall soon possess him. He is\ngrowing accustomed to the chill of the tomb. Man, according to\nphilosophers, dies in detail; at the same time he may be said even to\ncheat death; for that which his withered hand has laid hold upon, can\nit be called life?\n\nOh, to die young and throbbing with life! 'Tis a destiny enviable\nindeed! For is not this, as a delightful poet has said, \"to take away\nwith one all one's illusions, to be buried like an Eastern king, with\nall one's jewels and treasures, with all that makes the fortune of\nhumanity!\"\n\nHow many thank-offerings ought we to make to the kind and beneficent\nspirit that breathes in all things here below! Indeed, the care which\nnature takes to strip us piece by piece of our raiment, to unclothe\nthe soul by enfeebling gradually our hearing, sight, and sense of\ntouch, in making slower the circulation of our blood, and congealing\nour humors so as to make us as insensible to the approach of death as\nwe were to the beginnings of life, this maternal care which she\nlavishes on our frail tabernacle of clay, she also exhibits in regard\nto the emotions of man, and to the double existence which is created\nby conjugal love. She first sends us Confidence, which with extended\nhand and open heart says to us: \"Behold, I am thine forever!\"\nLukewarmness follows, walking with languid tread, turning aside her\nblonde face with a yawn, like a young widow obliged to listen to the\nminister of state who is ready to sign for her a pension warrant. Then\nIndifference comes; she stretches herself on the divan, taking no care\nto draw down the skirts of her robe which Desire but now lifted so\nchastely and so eagerly. She casts a glance upon the nuptial bed, with\nmodesty and without shamelessness; and, if she longs for anything, it\nis for the green fruit that calls up again to life the dulled papillae\nwith which her blase palate is bestrewn. Finally the philosophical\nExperience of Life presents herself, with careworn and disdainful\nbrow, pointing with her finger to the results, and not the causes of\nlife's incidents; to the tranquil victory, not to the tempestuous\ncombat. She reckons up the arrearages, with farmers, and calculates\nthe dowry of a child. She materializes everything. By a touch of her\nwand, life becomes solid and springless; of yore, all was fluid, now\nit is crystallized into rock. Delight no longer exists for our hearts,\nit has received its sentence, 'twas but mere sensation, a passing\nparoxysm. What the soul desires to-day is a condition of fixity; and\nhappiness alone is permanent, and consists in absolute tranquillity,\nin the regularity with which eating and sleeping succeed each other,\nand the sluggish organs perform their functions.\n\n\"This is horrible!\" I cried; \"I am young and full of life! Perish all\nthe books in the world rather than my illusions should perish!\"\n\nI left my laboratory and plunged into the whirl of Paris. As I saw the\nfairest faces glide by before me, I felt that I was not old. The first\nyoung woman who appeared before me, lovely in face and form and\ndressed to perfection, with one glance of fire made all the sorcery\nwhose spells I had voluntarily submitted to vanish into thin air.\nScarcely had I walked three steps in the Tuileries gardens, the place\nwhich I had chosen as my destination, before I saw the prototype of\nthe matrimonial situation which has last been described in this book.\nHad I desired to characterize, to idealize, to personify marriage, as\nI conceived it to be, it would have been impossible for the Creator\nhimself to have produced so complete a symbol of it as I then saw\nbefore me.\n\nImagine a woman of fifty, dressed in a jacket of reddish brown merino,\nholding in her left hand a green cord, which was tied to the collar of\nan English terrier, and with her right arm linked with that of a man\nin knee-breeches and silk stockings, whose hat had its brim\nwhimsically turned up, while snow-white tufts of hair like pigeon\nplumes rose at its sides. A slender queue, thin as a quill, tossed\nabout on the back of his sallow neck, which was thick, as far as it\ncould be seen above the turned down collar of a threadbare coat. This\ncouple assumed the stately tread of an ambassador; and the husband,\nwho was at least seventy, stopped complaisantly every time the terrier\nbegan to gambol. I hastened to pass this living impersonation of my\nMeditation, and was surprised to the last degree to recognize the\nMarquis de T-----, friend of the Comte de Noce, who had owed me for a\nlong time the end of the interrupted story which I related in the\n_Theory of the Bed_. [See Meditation XVII.]\n\n\"I have the honor to present to you the Marquise de T-----,\" he said\nto me.\n\nI made a low bow to a lady whose face was pale and wrinkled; her\nforehead was surmounted by a toupee, whose flattened ringlets, ranged\naround it, deceived no one, but only emphasized, instead of\nconcealing, the wrinkles by which it was deeply furrowed. The lady was\nslightly roughed, and had the appearance of an old country actress.\n\n\"I do not see, sir, what you can say against a marriage such as ours,\"\nsaid the old man to me.\n\n\"The laws of Rome forefend!\" I cried, laughing.\n\nThe marchioness gave me a look filled with inquietude as well as\ndisapprobation, which seemed to say, \"Is it possible that at my age I\nhave become but a concubine?\"\n\nWe sat down upon a bench, in the gloomy clump of trees planted at the\ncorner of the high terrace which commands La Place Louis XV, on the\nside of the Garde-Meuble. Autumn had already begun to strip the trees\nof their foliage, and was scattering before our eyes the yellow leaves\nof his garland; but the sun nevertheless filled the air with grateful\nwarmth.\n\n\"Well, is your work finished?\" asked the old man, in the unctuous\ntones peculiar to men of the ancient aristocracy.\n\nAnd with these words he gave a sardonic smile, as if for commentary.\n\n\"Very nearly, sir,\" I replied. \"I have come to the philosophic\nsituation, which you appear to have reached, but I confess that I--\"\n\n\"You are searching for ideas?\" he added--finishing for me a sentence,\nwhich I confess I did not know how to end.\n\n\"Well,\" he continued, \"you may boldly assume, that on arriving at the\nwinter of his life, a man--a man who thinks, I mean--ends by denying\nthat love has any existence, in the wild form with which our illusions\ninvested it!\"\n\n\"What! would you deny the existence of love on the day after that of\nmarriage?\"\n\n\"In the first place, the day after would be the very reason; but my\nmarriage was a commercial speculation,\" replied he, stooping to speak\ninto my ear. \"I have thereby purchased the care, the attention, the\nservices which I need; and I am certain to obtain all the\nconsideration my age demands; for I have willed all my property to my\nnephew, and as my wife will be rich only during my life, you can\nimagine how--\"\n\nI turned on the old marquis a look so piercing that he wrung my hand\nand said: \"You seem to have a good heart, for nothing is certain in\nthis life--\"\n\n\"Well, you may be sure that I have arranged a pleasant surprise for\nher in my will,\" he replied, gayly.\n\n\"Come here, Joseph,\" cried the marchioness, approaching a servant who\ncarried an overcoat lined with silk. \"The marquis is probably feeling\nthe cold.\"\n\nThe old marquis put on his overcoat, buttoned it up, and taking my\narm, led me to the sunny side of the terrace.\n\n\"In your work,\" he continued, \"you have doubtless spoken of the love\nof a young man. Well, if you wish to act up to the scope which you\ngive to your work--in the word ec--elec--\"\n\n\"Eclectic,\" I said, smiling, seeing he could not remember this\nphilosophic term.\n\n\"I know the word well!\" he replied. \"If then you wish to keep your vow\nof eclecticism, you should be willing to express certain virile ideas\non the subject of love which I will communicate to you, and I will not\ngrudge you the benefit of them, if benefit there be; I wish to\nbequeath my property to you, but this will be all that you will get of\nit.\"\n\n\"There is no money fortune which is worth as much as a fortune of\nideas if they be valuable ideas! I shall, therefore, listen to you\nwith a grateful mind.\"\n\n\"There is no such thing as love,\" pursued the old man, fixing his gaze\nupon me. \"It is not even a sentiment, it is an unhappy necessity,\nwhich is midway between the needs of the body and those of the soul.\nBut siding for a moment with your youthful thoughts, let us try to\nreason upon this social malady. I suppose that you can only conceive\nof love as either a need or a sentiment.\"\n\nI made a sign of assent.\n\n\"Considered as a need,\" said the old man, \"love makes itself felt last\nof all our needs, and is the first to cease. We are inclined to love\nin our twentieth year, to speak in round numbers, and we cease to do\nso at fifty. During these thirty years, how often would the need be\nfelt, if it were not for the provocation of city manners, and the\nmodern custom of living in the presence of not one woman, but of women\nin general? What is our debt to the perpetuation of the race? It\nprobably consists in producing as many children as we have breasts--so\nthat if one dies the other may live. If these two children were always\nfaithfully produced, what would become of nations? Thirty millions of\npeople would constitute a population too great for France, for the\nsoil is not sufficient to guarantee more than ten millions against\nmisery and hunger. Remember that China is reduced to the expedient of\nthrowing its children into the water, according to the accounts of\ntravelers. Now this production of two children is really the whole of\nmarriage. The superfluous pleasures of marriage are not only\nprofligate, but involve an immense loss to the man, as I will now\ndemonstrate. Compare then with this poverty of result, and shortness\nof duration, the daily and perpetual urgency of other needs of our\nexistence. Nature reminds us every hour of our real needs; and, on the\nother hand, refuses absolutely to grant the excess which our\nimagination sometimes craves in love. It is, therefore, the last of\nour needs, and the only one which may be forgotten without causing any\ndisturbance in the economy of the body. Love is a social luxury like\nlace and diamonds. But if we analyze it as a sentiment, we find two\ndistinct elements in it; namely, pleasure and passion. Now analyze\npleasure. Human affections rest upon two foundations, attraction and\nrepulsion. Attraction is a universal feeling for those things which\nflatter our instinct of self-preservation; repulsion is the exercise\nof the same instinct when it tells us that something is near which\nthreatens it with injury. Everything which profoundly moves our\norganization gives us a deeper sense of our existence; such a thing is\npleasure. It is contracted of desire, of effort, and the joy of\npossessing something or other. Pleasure is a unique element in life,\nand our passions are nothing but modifications, more or less keen, of\npleasure; moreover, familiarity with one pleasure almost always\nprecludes the enjoyment of all others. Now, love is the least keen and\nthe least durable of our pleasures. In what would you say the pleasure\nof love consists? Does it lie in the beauty of the beloved? In one\nevening you may obtain for money the loveliest odalisques; but at the\nend of a month you will in this way have burnt out all your sentiment\nfor all time. Would you love a women because she is well dressed,\nelegant, rich, keeps a carriage, has commercial credit? Do not call\nthis love, for it is vanity, avarice, egotism. Do you love her because\nshe is intellectual? You are in that case merely obeying the dictates\nof literary sentiment.\"\n\n\"But,\" I said, \"love only reveals its pleasures to those who mingle in\none their thoughts, their fortunes, their sentiments, their souls,\ntheir lives--\"\n\n\"Oh dear, dear!\" cried the old man, in a jeering tone. \"Can you show\nme five men in any nation who have sacrificed anything for a woman? I\ndo not say their life, for that is a slight thing,--the price of a\nhuman life under Napoleon was never more than twenty thousand francs;\nand there are in France to-day two hundred and fifty thousand brave\nmen who would give theirs for two inches of red ribbon; while seven\nmen have sacrificed for a woman ten millions on which they might have\nslept in solitude for a whole night. Dubreuil and Phmeja are still\nrarer than is the love of Dupris and Bolingbroke. These sentiments\nproceed from an unknown cause. But you have brought me thus to\nconsider love as a passion. Yes, indeed, it is the last of them all\nand the most contemptible. It promises everything, and fulfils\nnothing. It comes, like love, as a need, the last, and dies away the\nfirst. Ah, talk to me of revenge, hatred, avarice, of gaming, of\nambition, of fanaticism. These passions have something virile in them;\nthese sentiments are imperishable; they make sacrifices every day,\nsuch as love only makes by fits and starts. But,\" he went on, \"suppose\nyou abjure love. At first there will be no disquietudes, no anxieties,\nno worry, none of those little vexations that waste human life. A man\nlives happy and tranquil; in his social relations he becomes\ninfinitely more powerful and influential. This divorce from the thing\ncalled love is the primary secret of power in all men who control\nlarge bodies of men; but this is a mere trifle. Ah! if you knew with\nwhat magic influence a man is endowed, what wealth of intellectual\nforce, what longevity in physical strength he enjoys, when detaching\nhimself from every species of human passion he spends all his energy\nto the profit of his soul! If you could enjoy for two minutes the\nriches which God dispenses to the enlightened men who consider love as\nmerely a passing need which it is sufficient to satisfy for six months\nin their twentieth year; to the men who, scorning the luxurious and\nsurfeiting beefsteaks of Normandy, feed on the roots which God has\ngiven in abundance, and take their repose on a bed of withered leaves,\nlike the recluses of the Thebaid!--ah! you would not keep on three\nseconds the wool of fifteen merinos which covers you; you would fling\naway your childish switch, and go to live in the heaven of heavens!\nThere you would find the love you sought in vain amid the swine of\nearth; there you would hear a concert of somewhat different melody\nfrom that of M. Rossini, voices more faultless than that of Malibran.\nBut I am speaking as a blind man might, and repeating hearsays. If I\nhad not visited Germany about the year 1791, I should know nothing of\nall this. Yes!--man has a vocation for the infinite. There dwells\nwithin him an instinct that calls him to God. God is all, gives all,\nbrings oblivion on all, and thought is the thread which he has given\nus as a clue to communication with himself!\"\n\nHe suddenly stopped, and fixed his eyes upon the heavens.\n\n\"The poor fellow has lost his wits!\" I thought to myself.\n\n\"Sir,\" I said to him, \"it would be pushing my devotion to eclectic\nphilosophy too far to insert your ideas in my book; they would destroy\nit. Everything in it is based on love, platonic and sensual. God\nforbid that I should end my book by such social blasphemies! I would\nrather try to return by some pantagruelian subtlety to my herd of\ncelibates and honest women, with many an attempt to discover some\nsocial utility in their passions and follies. Oh! if conjugal peace\nleads us to arguments so disillusionizing and so gloomy as these, I\nknow a great many husbands who would prefer war to peace.\"\n\n\"At any rate, young man,\" the old marquis cried, \"I shall never have\nto reproach myself with refusing to give true directions to a traveler\nwho had lost his way.\"\n\n\"Adieu, thou old carcase!\" I said to myself; \"adieu, thou walking\nmarriage! Adieu, thou stick of a burnt-out fire-work! Adieu, thou\nmachine! Although I have given thee from time to time some glimpses of\npeople dear to me, old family portraits,--back with you to the picture\ndealer's shop, to Madame de T-----, and all the rest of them; take\nyour place round the bier with undertaker's mutes, for all I care!\"\n\n\n\n                           MEDITATION XXX.\n\n                             CONCLUSION.\n\nA recluse, who was credited with the gift of second sight, having\ncommanded the children of Israel to follow him to a mountain top in\norder to hear the revelation of certain mysteries, saw that he was\naccompanied by a crowd which took up so much room on the road that,\nprophet as he was, his _amour-propre_ was vastly tickled.\n\nBut as the mountain was a considerable distance off, it happened that\nat the first halt, an artisan remembered that he had to deliver a new\npair of slippers to a duke and peer, a publican fell to thinking how\nhe had some specie to negotiate, and off they went.\n\nA little further on two lovers lingered under the olive trees and\nforgot the discourse of the prophet; for they thought that the\npromised land was the spot where they stood, and the divine word was\nheard when they talked to one another.\n\nThe fat people, loaded with punches a la Sancho, had been wiping their\nforeheads with their handkerchiefs, for the last quarter of an hour,\nand began to grow thirsty, and therefore halted beside a clear spring.\n\nCertain retired soldiers complained of the corns which tortured them,\nand spoke of Austerlitz, and of their tight boots.\n\nAt the second halt, certain men of the world whispered together:\n\n\"But this prophet is a fool.\"\n\n\"Have you ever heard him?\"\n\n\"I? I came from sheer curiosity.\"\n\n\"And I because I saw the fellow had a large following.\" (The last man\nwho spoke was a fashionable.)\n\n\"He is a mere charlatan.\"\n\nThe prophet kept marching on. But when he reached the plateau, from\nwhich a wide horizon spread before him, he turned back, and saw no one\nbut a poor Israelite, to whom he might have said as the Prince de\nLigne to the wretched little bandy-legged drummer boy, whom he found\non the spot where he expected to see a whole garrison awaiting him:\n\"Well, my readers, it seems that you have dwindled down to one.\"\n\nThou man of God who has followed me so far--I hope that a short\nrecapitulation will not terrify thee, and I have traveled on under the\nimpression that thou, like me, hast kept saying to thyself, \"Where the\ndeuce are we going?\"\n\nWell, well, this is the place and the time to ask you, respected\nreader, what your opinion is with regard to the renewal of the tobacco\nmonopoly, and what you think of the exorbitant taxes on wines, on the\nright to carry firearms, on gaming, on lotteries, on playing cards, on\nbrandy, on soap, cotton, silks, etc.\n\n\"I think that since all these duties make up one-third of the public\nrevenues, we should be seriously embarrassed if--\"\n\nSo that, my excellent model husband, if no one got drunk, or gambled,\nor smoked, or hunted, in a word if we had neither vices, passions, nor\nmaladies in France, the State would be within an ace of bankruptcy;\nfor it seems that the capital of our national income consists of\npopular corruptions, as our commerce is kept alive by national luxury.\nIf you cared to look a little closer into the matter you would see\nthat all taxes are based upon some moral malady. As a matter of fact,\nif we continue this philosophical scrutiny it will appear that the\ngendarmes would want horses and leather breeches, if every one kept\nthe peace, and if there were neither foes nor idle people in the\nworld. Therefore impose virtue on mankind! Well, I consider that there\nare more parallels than people think between my honest woman and the\nbudget, and I will undertake to prove this by a short essay on\nstatistics, if you will permit me to finish my book on the same lines\nas those on which I have begun it. Will you grant that a lover must\nput on more clean shirts than are worn by either a husband, or a\ncelibate unattached? This to me seems beyond doubt. The difference\nbetween a husband and a lover is seen even in the appearance of their\ntoilette. The one is careless, he is unshaved, and the other never\nappears excepting in full dress. Sterne has pleasantly remarked that\nthe account book of the laundress was the most authentic record he\nknew, as to the life of Tristram Shandy; and that it was easy to guess\nfrom the number of shirts he wore what passages of his book had cost\nhim most. Well, with regard to lovers the account book of their\nlaundresses is the most faithful historic record as well as the most\nimpartial account of their various amours. And really a prodigious\nquantity of tippets, cravats, dresses, which are absolutely necessary\nto coquetry, is consumed in the course of an amour. A wonderful\nprestige is gained by white stockings, the lustre of a collar, or a\nshirt-waist, the artistically arranged folds of a man's shirt, or the\ntaste of his necktie or his collar. This will explain the passages in\nwhich I said of the honest woman [Meditation II], \"She spends her life\nin having her dresses starched.\" I have sought information on this\npoint from a lady in order to learn accurately at what sum was to be\nestimated the tax thus imposed by love, and after fixing it at one\nhundred francs per annum for a woman, I recollect what she said with\ngreat good humor: \"It depends on the character of the man, for some\nare so much more particular than others.\" Nevertheless, after a very\nprofound discussion, in which I settled upon the sum for the\ncelibates, and she for her sex, it was agreed that, one thing with\nanother, since the two lovers belong to the social sphere which this\nwork concerns, they ought to spend between them, in the matter\nreferred to, one hundred and fifty francs more than in time of peace.\n\nBy a like treaty, friendly in character and long discussed, we\narranged that there should be a collective difference of four hundred\nfrancs between the expenditure for all parts of the dress on a war\nfooting, and for that on a peace footing. This provision was\nconsidered very paltry by all the powers, masculine or feminine, whom\nwe consulted. The light thrown upon these delicate matters by the\ncontributions of certain persons suggested to us the idea of gathering\ntogether certain savants at a dinner party, and taking their wise\ncounsels for our guidance in these important investigations. The\ngathering took place. It was with glass in hand and after listening to\nmany brilliant speeches that I received for the following chapters on\nthe budget of love, a sort of legislative sanction. The sum of one\nhundred francs was allowed for porters and carriages. Fifty crowns\nseemed very reasonable for the little patties that people eat on a\nwalk, for bouquets of violets and theatre tickets. The sum of two\nhundred francs was considered necessary for the extra expense of\ndainties and dinners at restaurants. It was during this discussion\nthat a young cavalryman, who had been made almost tipsy by the\nchampagne, was called to order for comparing lovers to distilling\nmachines. But the chapter that gave occasion for the most violent\ndiscussion, and the consideration of which was adjourned for several\nweeks, when a report was made, was that concerning presents. At the\nlast session, the refined Madame de D----- was the first speaker; and\nin a graceful address, which testified to the nobility of her\nsentiments, she set out to demonstrate that most of the time the gifts\nof love had no intrinsic value. The author replied that all lovers had\ntheir portraits taken. A lady objected that a portrait was invested\ncapital, and care should always be taken to recover it for a second\ninvestment. But suddenly a gentleman of Provence rose to deliver a\nphilippic against women. He spoke of the greediness which most women\nin love exhibited for furs, satins, silks, jewels and furniture; but a\nlady interrupted him by asking if Madame d'O-----y, his intimate\nfriend, had not already paid his debts twice over.\n\n\"You are mistaken, madame,\" said the Provencal, \"it was her husband.\"\n\n\"The speaker is called to order,\" cried the president, \"and condemned\nto dine the whole party, for having used the word _husband_.\"\n\nThe Provencal was completely refuted by a lady who undertook to prove\nthat women show much more self-sacrifice in love than men; that lovers\ncost very dear, and that the honest woman may consider herself very\nfortunate if she gets off with spending on them two thousand francs\nfor a single year. The discussion was in danger of degenerating into\nan exchange of personalities, when a division was called for. The\nconclusions of the committee were adopted by vote. The conclusions\nwere, in substance, that the amount for presents between lovers during\nthe year should be reckoned at five hundred francs, but that in this\ncomputation should be included: (1) the expense of expeditions into\nthe country; (2) the pharmaceutical expenses, occasioned by the colds\ncaught from walking in the damp pathways of parks, and in leaving the\ntheatre, which expenses are veritable presents; (3) the carrying of\nletters, and law expenses; (4) journeys, and expenses whose items are\nforgotten, without counting the follies committed by the spenders;\ninasmuch as, according to the investigations of the committee, it had\nbeen proved that most of a man's extravagant expenditure profited the\nopera girls, rather than the married women. The conclusion arrived at\nfrom this pecuniary calculation was that, in one way or another, a\npassion costs nearly fifteen hundred francs a year, which were\nrequired to meet the expense borne more unequally by lovers, but which\nwould not have occurred, but for their attachment. There was also a\nsort of unanimity in the opinion of the council that this was the\nlowest annual figure which would cover the cost of a passion. Now, my\ndear sir, since we have proved, by the statistics of our conjugal\ncalculations [See Meditations I, II, and III.] and proved\nirrefragably, that there exists a floating total of at least fifteen\nhundred thousand unlawful passions, it follows:\n\nThat the criminal conversations of a third among the French population\ncontribute a sum of nearly three thousand millions to that vast\ncirculation of money, the true blood of society, of which the budget\nis the heart;\n\nThat the honest woman not only gives life to the children of the\npeerage, but also to its financial funds;\n\nThat manufacturers owe their prosperity to this _systolic_ movement;\n\nThat the honest woman is a being essentially _budgetative_, and active\nas a consumer;\n\nThat the least decline in public love would involve incalculable\nmiseries to the treasury, and to men of invested fortunes;\n\nThat a husband has at least a third of his fortune invested in the\ninconstancy of his wife, etc.\n\nI am well aware that you are going to open your mouth and talk to me\nabout manners, politics, good and evil. But, my dear victim of the\nMinotaur, is not happiness the object which all societies should set\nbefore them? Is it not this axiom that makes these wretched kings give\nthemselves so much trouble about their people? Well, the honest woman\nhas not, like them, thrones, gendarmes and tribunals; she has only a\nbed to offer; but if our four hundred thousand women can, by this\ningenious machine, make a million celibates happy, do not they attain\nin a mysterious manner, and without making any fuss, the end aimed at\nby a government, namely, the end of giving the largest possible amount\nof happiness to the mass of mankind?\n\n\"Yes, but the annoyances, the children, the troubles--\"\n\nAh, you must permit me to proffer the consolatory thought with which\none of our wittiest caricaturists closes his satiric observations:\n\"Man is not perfect!\" It is sufficient, therefore, that our\ninstitutions have no more disadvantages than advantages in order to be\nreckoned excellent; for the human race is not placed, socially\nspeaking, between the good and the bad, but between the bad and the\nworse. Now if the work, which we are at present on the point of\nconcluding, has had for its object the diminution of the worse, as it\nis found in matrimonial institutions, in laying bare the errors and\nabsurdities due to our manners and our prejudices, we shall certainly\nhave won one of the fairest titles that can be put forth by a man to a\nplace among the benefactors of humanity. Has not the author made it\nhis aim, by advising husbands, to make women more self-restrained and\nconsequently to impart more violence to passions, more money to the\ntreasury, more life to commerce and agriculture? Thanks to this last\nMeditation he can flatter himself that he has strictly kept the vow of\neclecticism, which he made in projecting the work, and he hopes he has\nmarshaled all details of the case, and yet like an attorney-general\nrefrained from expressing his personal opinion. And really what do you\nwant with an axiom in the present matter? Do you wish that this book\nshould be a mere development of the last opinion held by Tronchet, who\nin his closing days thought that the law of marriage had been drawn up\nless in the interest of husbands than of children? I also wish it very\nmuch. Would you rather desire that this book should serve as proof to\nthe peroration of the Capuchin, who preached before Anne of Austria,\nand when he saw the queen and her ladies overwhelmed by his triumphant\narguments against their frailty, said as he came down from the pulpit\nof truth, \"Now you are all honorable women, and it is we who\nunfortunately are sons of Samaritan women\"? I have no objection to\nthat either. You may draw what conclusion you please; for I think it\nis very difficult to put forth two contrary opinions, without both of\nthem containing some grains of truth. But the book has not been\nwritten either for or against marriage; all I have thought you needed\nwas an exact description of it. If an examination of the machine shall\nlead us to make one wheel of it more perfect; if by scouring away some\nrust we have given more elastic movement to its mechanism; then give\nhis wage to the workman. If the author has had the impertinence to\nutter truths too harsh for you, if he has too often spoken of rare and\nexceptional facts as universal, if he has omitted the commonplaces\nwhich have been employed from time immemorial to offer women the\nincense of flattery, oh, let him be crucified! But do not impute to\nhim any motive of hostility to the institution itself; he is concerned\nmerely for men and women. He knows that from the moment marriage\nceases to defeat the purpose of marriage, it is unassailable; and,\nafter all, if there do arise serious complaints against this\ninstitution, it is perhaps because man has no memory excepting for his\ndisasters, that he accuses his wife, as he accuses his life, for\nmarriage is but a life within a life. Yet people whose habit it is to\ntake their opinions from newspapers would perhaps despise a book in\nwhich they see the mania of eclecticism pushed too far; for then they\nabsolutely demand something in the shape of a peroration, it is not\nhard to find one for them. And since the words of Napoleon served to\nstart this book, why should it not end as it began? Before the whole\nCouncil of State the First Consul pronounced the following startling\nphrase, in which he at the same time eulogized and satirized marriage,\nand summed up the contents of this book:\n\n\"If a man never grew old, I would never wish him to have a wife!\"\n\n\n\n                             POSTSCRIPT.\n\n\"And so you are going to be married?\" asked the duchess of the author\nwho had read his manuscript to her.\n\nShe was one of those ladies to whom the author has already paid his\nrespects in the introduction of this work.\n\n\"Certainly, madame,\" I replied. \"To meet a woman who has courage\nenough to become mine, would satisfy the wildest of my hopes.\"\n\n\"Is this resignation or infatuation?\"\n\n\"That is my affair.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, as you are doctor of conjugal arts and sciences, allow me\nto tell you a little Oriental fable, that I read in a certain sheet,\nwhich is published annually in the form of an almanac. At the\nbeginning of the Empire ladies used to play at a game in which no one\naccepted a present from his or her partner in the game, without saying\nthe word, _Diadeste_. A game lasted, as you may well suppose, during a\nweek, and the point was to catch some one receiving some trifle or\nother without pronouncing the sacramental word.\"\n\n\"Even a kiss?\"\n\n\"Oh, I have won the _Diadeste_ twenty times in that way,\" she\nlaughingly replied.\n\n\"It was, I believe, from the playing of this game, whose origin is\nArabian or Chinese, that my apologue takes its point. But if I tell\nyou,\" she went on, putting her finger to her nose, with a charming air\nof coquetry, \"let me contribute it as a finale to your work.\"\n\n\"This would indeed enrich me. You have done me so many favors already,\nthat I cannot repay--\"\n\nShe smiled slyly, and replied as follows:\n\n\n\nA philosopher had compiled a full account of all the tricks that women\ncould possibly play, and in order to verify it, he always carried it\nabout with him. One day he found himself in the course of his travels\nnear an encampment of Arabs. A young woman, who had seated herself\nunder the shade of a palm tree, rose on his approach. She kindly asked\nhim to rest himself in her tent, and he could not refuse. Her husband\nwas then absent. Scarcely had the traveler seated himself on a soft\nrug, when the graceful hostess offered him fresh dates, and a cup of\nmilk; he could not help observing the rare beauty of her hands as she\ndid so. But, in order to distract his mind from the sensations roused\nin him by the fair young Arabian girl, whose charms were most\nformidable, the sage took his book, and began to read.\n\nThe seductive creature piqued by this slight said to him in a\nmelodious voice:\n\n\"That book must be very interesting since it seems to be the sole\nobject worthy of your attention. Would it be taking a liberty to ask\nwhat science it treats of?\"\n\nThe philosopher kept his eyes lowered as he replied:\n\n\"The subject of this book is beyond the comprehension of ladies.\"\n\nThis rebuff excited more than ever the curiosity of the young Arabian\nwoman. She put out the prettiest little foot that had ever left its\nfleeting imprint on the shifting sands of the desert. The philosopher\nwas perturbed, and his eyes were too powerfully tempted to resist\nwandering from these feet, which betokened so much, up to the bosom,\nwhich was still more ravishingly fair; and soon the flame of his\nadmiring glance was mingled with the fire that sparkled in the pupils\nof the young Asiatic. She asked again the name of the book in tones so\nsweet that the philosopher yielded to the fascination, and replied:\n\n\"I am the author of the book; but the substance of it is not mine: it\ncontains an account of all the ruses and stratagems of women.\"\n\n\"What! Absolutely all?\" said the daughter of the desert.\n\n\"Yes, all! And it has been only by a constant study of womankind that\nI have come to regard them without fear.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the young Arabian girl, lowering the long lashes of her\nwhite eyelids.\n\nThen, suddenly darting the keenest of her glances at the pretended\nsage, she made him in one instant forget the book and all its\ncontents. And now our philosopher was changed to the most passionate\nof men. Thinking he saw in the bearing of the young woman a faint\ntrace of coquetry, the stranger was emboldened to make an avowal. How\ncould he resist doing so? The sky was blue, the sand blazed in the\ndistance like a scimitar of gold, the wind of the desert breathed\nlove, and the woman of Arabia seemed to reflect all the fire with\nwhich she was surrounded; her piercing eyes were suffused with a mist;\nand by a slight nod of the head she seemed to make the luminous\natmosphere undulate, as she consented to listen to the stranger's\nwords of love. The sage was intoxicated with delirious hopes, when the\nyoung woman, hearing in the distance the gallop of a horse which\nseemed to fly, exclaimed:\n\n\"We are lost! My husband is sure to catch us. He is jealous as a\ntiger, and more pitiless than one. In the name of the prophet, if you\nlove your life, conceal yourself in this chest!\"\n\nThe author, frightened out of his wits, seeing no other way of getting\nout of a terrible fix, jumped into the box, and crouched down there.\nThe woman closed down the lid, locked it, and took the key. She ran to\nmeet her husband, and after some caresses which put him into a good\nhumor, she said:\n\n\"I must relate to you a very singular adventure I have just had.\"\n\n\"I am listening, my gazelle,\" replied the Arab, who sat down on a rug\nand crossed his feet after the Oriental manner.\n\n\"There arrived here to-day a kind of philosopher,\" she began, \"he\nprofesses to have compiled a book which describes all the wiles of\nwhich my sex is capable; and then this sham sage made love to me.\"\n\n\"Well, go on!\" cried the Arab.\n\n\"I listened to his avowal. He was young, ardent--and you came just in\ntime to save my tottering virtue.\"\n\nThe Arab leaped to his feet like a lion, and drew his scimitar with a\nshout of fury. The philosopher heard all from the depths of the chest\nand consigned to Hades his book, and all the men and women of Arabia\nPetraea.\n\n\"Fatima!\" cried the husband, \"if you would save your life, answer me\n--Where is the traitor?\"\n\nTerrified at the tempest which she had roused, Fatima threw herself at\nher husband's feet, and trembling beneath the point of his sword, she\npointed out the chest with a prompt though timid glance of her eye.\nThen she rose to her feet, as if in shame, and taking the key from her\ngirdle presented it to the jealous Arab; but, just as he was about to\nopen the chest, the sly creature burst into a peal of laughter. Faroun\nstopped with a puzzled expression, and looked at his wife in\namazement.\n\n\"So I shall have my fine chain of gold, after all!\" she cried, dancing\nfor joy. \"You have lost the _Diadeste_. Be more mindful next time.\"\n\nThe husband, thunderstruck, let fall the key, and offered her the\nlonged-for chain on bended knee, and promised to bring to his darling\nFatima all the jewels brought by the caravan in a year, if she would\nrefrain from winning the _Diadeste_ by such cruel stratagems. Then, as\nhe was an Arab, and did not like forfeiting a chain of gold, although\nhis wife had fairly won it, he mounted his horse again, and galloped\noff, to complain at his will, in the desert, for he loved Fatima too\nwell to let her see his annoyance. The young woman then drew forth the\nphilosopher from the chest, and gravely said to him, \"Do not forget,\nMaster Doctor, to put this feminine trick into your collection.\"\n\n\n\n\"Madame,\" said I to the duchess, \"I understand! If I marry, I am bound\nto be unexpectedly outwitted by some infernal trick or other; but I\nshall in that case, you may be quite sure, furnish a model household\nfor the admiration of my contemporaries.\"\n\n\n\nPARIS, 1824-29.","title":"The Physiology of Marriage, Part 3","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":32674}