e nations!

Now the difficult course which a man has to steer in presence of such
serious incidents as these, is what we may call the _haute politique_
of marriage, and is the subject of the second and third parts of our
book. That breviary of marital Machiavelism will teach you the manner
in which you may grow to greatness within that frivolous mind, within
that soul of lacework, to use Napoleon's phrase. You may learn how a
man may exhibit a soul of steel, may enter upon this little domestic
war without ever yielding the empire of his will, and may do so
without compromising his happiness. For if you exhibit any tendency to
abdication, your wife will despise you, for the sole reason that she
has discovered you to be destitute of mental vigor; you are no longer
a _man_ to her.

But we have not yet reached the point at which are to be developed
those theories and principles, by means of which a man may unite
elegance of manners with severity of measures; let it suffice us, for
the moment, to point out the importance of impending events and let us
pursue our theme.

At this fatal epoch, you will see that she is adroitly setting up a
right to go out alone.

You were at one time her god, her idol. She has now reached that
height of devotion at which it is permitted to see holes in the
garments of the saints.

"Oh, mon Dieu! My dear," said Madame de la Valliere to her husband,
"how badly you wear your sword! M. de Richelieu has a way of making it
hang straight at his side, which you ought to try to imitate; it is in
much better taste."

"My dear, you could not tell me in a more tactful manner that we have
been married five months!" replied the Duke, whose repartee made his
fortune in the reign of Louis XV.

She will study your character in order to find weapons against you.
Such a study, which love would hold in horror, reveals itself in the
thousand little traps which she lays purposely to make you scold her;
when a woman has no excuse for minotaurizing her husband she sets to
work to make one.

She will perhaps begin dinner without waiting for you.

If you drive through the middle of the town, she will point out
certain objects which escaped your notice; she will sing before you
without feeling afraid; she will interrupt you, sometimes vouchsafe no
reply to you, and will prove to you, in a thousand different ways,
that she is enjoying at your side the use of all her faculties and
exercising her private judgme