y were lying in
wait for you, and there they catch you. You had not foreseen it. Now
you are a lover, poor young man, and will do whatever they wish.

I only wish that this girl, bought so dearly, may be really yours. But
what with that mother and that priest, the same influence, though
diminished for a moment, will soon resume its strength. You will have
a wife, minus heart and soul, and you will understand, when it is too
late, that he who now gives her away knows well how to keep her.[4]

[1] This circumspection would bear carrying a little farther, if we are
to judge of it by the public adventures of the Abbes C. and N., who,
by-the-by, will not prosper the less on this account, as two others, of
high rank, and known to everybody, have already shown.

[2] M. Louandre gives the figure six hundred and twenty-two thousand
girls, in his conscientious statistics.--_Revue des Deux-Mondes_, 1844.

[3] What is direction generally?--1st, _Love before love_; it
cultivates in the little girl that power which is now awakening, and it
cultivates it so well, that on leaving the convent, her parents see the
necessity of a speedy marriage to support her, for she is in danger of
falling:--2ndly, _Love after love_. An aged female is, in a layman's
estimation, an _old_ woman: but according to the priest's, she is a
_woman_: the priest begins where the world ends.

[4] Let us add to this chapter a fact, which (being compared with what
we have said about ecclesiastical discipline) inclines us to think that
the clergy do not lose sight of the girls who are brought up in the
convents under their direction. A friend of mine, whose high position
and character render his testimony very important, lately told me that,
having placed a young relation of his in a convent, he had heard from
the nuns _that they sent to Rome_ the names of the pupils who
distinguished themselves the most. The _centralization_ of such
private information, about the daughters of the leading families of the
Catholic world, must indeed facilitate many combinations, and be of
especial service to Ultramontane politics. The Jesu, if it were so,
would be a vast marriage office.

CHAPTER II.

WOMAN.--THE HUSBAND DOES NOT CONSOCIATE WITH HIS WIFE.--HE SELDOM KNOWS
HOW TO INITIATE HER INTO HIS THOUGHTS.--WHAT MUTUAL INITIATION WOULD
BE.--THE WIFE CONSOLES HERSELF WITH HER SON.--HE IS TAKEN FROM
HER.--HER LONELINESS AND ENNUI.--A PIOUS YOUNG MAN.--THE S