d there is
no living being but the creature invested with the priesthood of
thought by means of a privileged education, and with whom leisure has
developed the power of imagination; in other words that only is a
human being whose soul dreams, in love, either of intellectual
enjoyments or of physical delights.

We would, however, make the remark that these nine million female
pariahs produce here and there a thousand peasant girls who from
peculiar circumstances are as fair as Cupids; they come to Paris or to
the great cities and end up by attaining the rank of _femmes comme il
faut_; but to set off against these two or three thousand favored
creatures, there are one hundred thousand others who remain servants
or abandon themselves to frightful irregularities. Nevertheless, we
are obliged to count these Pompadours of the village among the
feminine population.

Our first calculation is based upon the statistical discovery that in
France there are eighteen millions of the poor, ten millions of people
in easy circumstances and two millions of the rich.

There exist, therefore, in France only six millions of women in whom
men of sentiment are now interested, have been interested, or will be
interested.

Let us subject this social elite to a philosophic examination.

We think, without fear of being deceived, that married people who have
lived twenty years together may sleep in peace without fear of having
their love trespassed upon or of incurring the scandal of a lawsuit
for criminal conversation.

From these six millions of individuals we must subtract about two
millions of women who are extremely attractive, because for the last
forty years they have seen the world; but since they have not the
power to make any one fall in love with them, they are on the outside
of the discussion now before us. If they are unhappy enough to receive
no attention for the sake of amiability, they are soon seized with
ennui; they fall back upon religion, upon the cultivation of pets,
cats, lap-dogs, and other fancies which are no more offensive than
their devoutness.

The calculations made at the Bureau of Longitudes concerning
population authorize us again to subtract from the total mentioned two
millions of young girls, pretty enough to kill; they are at present in
the A B C of life and innocently play with other children, without
dreading that these little hobbledehoys, who now make them laugh, will
one day make them weep.

Agai