onfidence which you show you have in him that will always
keep him in the path of faithfulness, unless he is, which is only
exceptional, an absolutely bad man.

If clouds are gathering over your happiness, it is for you women to
clear them away. You are the guardian angels of the home, which is your
kingdom. If you have trials, strain every nerve to appear smiling, and
if sometimes tears stifle you, shed them in secret, even should the
cause of your trial be the inconstancy of your husband.

You will not bring him back to you with reproaches, tears and scenes.
You will thus keep him away for good. Remember that Nature, which has
treated you so ungenerously, makes you ugly when you weep and hideous
when you make a scene.

You will bring back an erring husband by your kindness, your sweetness,
your devotion, and your intelligence. The only infallible way to get a
husband attached to you is to let him believe that you never suspected
him, much less accused him, even when he was guilty. Call to your aid
whatever resources are at your disposal--resources of intelligence, of
beauty, of abnegation--and, if your husband is not a brute, he will
return to you, and he will be all the more ashamed of the way in which
he neglected you for a time that, by your behaviour, you seem to
consider he had never for a day ceased to love you.

Never make an allusion to the fatted calf which you killed on the
return of the prodigal heart. Be as merciful in your victory as you were
in your temporary defeat.

Do not be satisfied with forgiving; forget, and make him forget
everything. Use scales: on one side place his years of devotion to you,
his industry, his forethought in securing your future and that of your
children; on the other his faults; and even if these scales should
incline to remain horizontal, with a gentle touch of your finger make
them go down in favour of what he has done for you.

The supreme coquetry of a woman is to know how to reign, even when her
husband governs. Her very weakness is the best weapon in her hands. Her
husband should be the motive of all her actions. Before thinking of
appearing beautiful to the indifferent, she should think of appearing
beautiful to her husband.

If she is admired, she should feel proud of it for his sake, and make
him understand that only crumbs are for strangers; that he alone is
invited to the whole meal of her beauty, her love, her boundless
devotion.

And let me add that there