t found themselves, once at least in
their lives, _a propos_ of some undeniable fact, confronted with
a direct, sharp, uncompromising question,--one of those questions
pitilessly asked by husbands, the mere apprehension of which gives
a chill, while the actual words enter the heart like the blade of a
dagger. It is from such crises that the maxim has come, "All women
lie." Falsehood, kindly falsehood, venial falsehood, sublime falsehood,
horrible falsehood,--but always the necessity to lie. This necessity
admitted, ought they not to know how to lie well? French women do it
admirably. Our manners and customs teach them deception! Besides,
women are so naively saucy, so pretty, graceful, and withal so true
in lying,--they recognize so fully the utility of doing so in order
to avoid in social life the violent shocks which happiness might not
resist,--that lying is seen to be as necessary to their lives as the
cotton-wool in which they put away their jewels. Falsehood becomes to
them the foundation of speech; truth is exceptional; they tell it, if
they are virtuous, by caprice or by calculation. According to individual
character, some women laugh when they lie; others weep; others are
grave; some grow angry. After beginning life by feigning indifference
to the homage that deeply flatters them, they often end by lying to
themselves. Who has not admired their apparent superiority to everything
at the very moment when they are trembling for the secret treasures of
their love? Who has never studied their ease, their readiness, their
freedom of mind in the greatest embarrassments of life? In them, nothing
is put on. Deception comes as the snow from heaven. And then, with what
art they discover the truth in others! With what shrewdness they employ
a direct logic in answer to some passionate question which has revealed
to them the secret of the heart of a man who was guileless enough to
proceed by questioning! To question a woman! why, that is delivering
one's self up to her; does she not learn in that way all that we seek to
hide from her? Does she not know also how to be dumb, through speaking?
What men are daring enough to struggle with the Parisian woman?--a woman
who knows how to hold herself above all dagger thrusts, saying: "You are
very inquisitive; what is it to you? Why do you wish to know? Ah! you
are jealous! And suppose I do not choose to answer you?"--in short, a
woman who possesses the hundred and thirty-seven methods