trange to say, attributed to Dorat. It has the
merit of yielding important lessons for husbands, while at the same
time it gives the celibates a delightful picture of morals in the last
century.

MEDITATION XXV.

OF ALLIES.

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

Unhappily we are compelled to confess that all women make this great
mistake, for the lover is only the first of their soldiers. It may be
a member of their family or at least a distant cousin. This
Meditation, then, is intended to answer the inquiry, what assistance
can each of the different powers which influence human life give to
your wife? or better than that, what artifices will she resort to to
arm them against you?

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

1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION
WITH MARRIAGE.
2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.
3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.
4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES.
5. OF THE MAID.
6. OF THE DOCTOR.

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

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

The author thinks that La Bruyere is mistaken.

2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.

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

Some diplomats have attempted on more than one occasion the diabolical
task of gaining over the dowagers who opposed their machinations; but
if they have ever succeeded it was only after making enormous
concessions to them; for diplomats are practiced people and we do not
think that you can employ their recipe in dealing with your
mother-in-law. She will be the first aid-de-camp of her daught