Project Gutenberg's Women of the Romance Countries, by John R. Effinger

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Title: Women of the Romance Countries

Author: John R. Effinger

Release Date: June 21, 2006 [EBook #18642]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: MARIA DE PADILLA

_After the painting by Paul Gervais._]

WOMAN

In all ages and in all countries

WOMEN OF THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES

by

JOHN R. EFFINGER, Ph.D.
_Of the University of Michigan_

THE RITTENHOUSE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA

_Copyrighted at Washington and entered at
Stationers' Hall, London

1907 1908

and printed by arrangement with George Barrie's Sons._

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

PREFACE

No one can deny the influence of woman, which has been a potent factor
in society, directly or indirectly, ever since the days of Mother Eve.
Whether living in Oriental seclusion, or enjoying the freer life of the
Western world, she has always played an important part in the onward
march of events, and exercised a subtle power in all things, great and
small. To appreciate this power properly, and give it a worthy
narrative, is ever a difficult and well-nigh impossible task, at least
for mortal man. Under the most favorable circumstances, the subject is
elusive and difficult of approach, lacking in sequence, and often
shrouded in mystery.

What, then, must have been the task of the author of the present volume,
in essaying to write of the women of Italy and Spain! In neither of
these countries are the people all of the same race, nor do they afford
the development of a constant type for observation or study. Italy, with
its mediaeval chaos, its free cities, and its fast-and-loose allegiance
to the temporal power of the Eternal City, has ever been the despair of
the orderly historian; and Spain, overrun by Goth, by Roman, and by
Moslem host, presents strange contrasts and rare complexities.

Such being the case, this account of the women of the Romance countries
does not attempt to trace in detail the