als on the same field. The
author was considered quite insignificant by the first of the two
ladies, and since the other soon discovered this, they carried on in
his presence the conversation which they had begun in a frank
discussion of a woman's lot.

"Have you noticed, dear, that women in general bestow their love only
upon a fool?"

"What do you mean by that, duchess? And how can you make your remark
fit in with the fact that they have an aversion for their husbands?"

"These women are absolute tyrants!" said the author to himself. "Has
the devil again turned up in a mob cap?"

"No, dear, I am not joking," replied the duchess, "and I shudder with
fear for myself when I coolly consider people whom I have known in
other times. Wit always has a sparkle which wounds us, and the man who
has much of it makes us fear him perhaps, and if he is a proud man he
will be capable of jealousy, and is not therefore to our taste. In
fact, we prefer to raise a man to our own height rather than to have
to climb up to his. Talent has great successes for us to share in, but
the fool affords enjoyment to us; and we would sooner hear said 'that
is a very handsome man' than to see our lover elected to the
Institute."

"That's enough, duchess! You have absolutely startled me."

And the young coquette began to describe the lovers about whom all the
women of her acquaintance raved; there was not a single man of
intellect among them.

"But I swear by my virtue," she said, "their husbands are worth more."

"But these are the sort of people they choose for husbands," the
duchess answered gravely.

"Tell me," asked the author, "is the disaster which threatens the
husband in France quite inevitable?"

"It is," replied the duchess, with a smile; "and the rage which
certain women breathe out against those of their sex, whose
unfortunate happiness it is to entertain a passion, proves what a
burden to them is their chastity. If it were not for fear of the
devil, one would be Lais; another owes her virtue to the dryness of
her selfish heart; a third to the silly behaviour of her first lover;
another still--"

The author checked this outpour of revelation by confiding to the two
ladies his design for the work with which he had been haunted; they
smiled and promised him their assistance. The youngest, with an air of
gaiety suggested one of the first chapters of the undertaking, by
saying that she would take upon herself to prove mathematic