o our manners and our prejudices, we shall certainly
have won one of the fairest titles that can be put forth by a man to a
place among the benefactors of humanity. Has not the author made it
his aim, by advising husbands, to make women more self-restrained and
consequently to impart more violence to passions, more money to the
treasury, more life to commerce and agriculture? Thanks to this last
Meditation he can flatter himself that he has strictly kept the vow of
eclecticism, which he made in projecting the work, and he hopes he has
marshaled all details of the case, and yet like an attorney-general
refrained from expressing his personal opinion. And really what do you
want with an axiom in the present matter? Do you wish that this book
should be a mere development of the last opinion held by Tronchet, who
in his closing days thought that the law of marriage had been drawn up
less in the interest of husbands than of children? I also wish it very
much. Would you rather desire that this book should serve as proof to
the peroration of the Capuchin, who preached before Anne of Austria,
and when he saw the queen and her ladies overwhelmed by his triumphant
arguments against their frailty, said as he came down from the pulpit
of truth, "Now you are all honorable women, and it is we who
unfortunately are sons of Samaritan women"? I have no objection to
that either. You may draw what conclusion you please; for I think it
is very difficult to put forth two contrary opinions, without both of
them containing some grains of truth. But the book has not been
written either for or against marriage; all I have thought you needed
was an exact description of it. If an examination of the machine shall
lead us to make one wheel of it more perfect; if by scouring away some
rust we have given more elastic movement to its mechanism; then give
his wage to the workman. If the author has had the impertinence to
utter truths too harsh for you, if he has too often spoken of rare and
exceptional facts as universal, if he has omitted the commonplaces
which have been employed from time immemorial to offer women the
incense of flattery, oh, let him be crucified! But do not impute to
him any motive of hostility to the institution itself; he is concerned
merely for men and women. He knows that from the moment marriage
ceases to defeat the purpose of marriage, it is unassailable; and,
after all, if there do arise serious complaints against this
institut