that the constitutional system is infinitely
dearer than the monarchical system. For a nation as for a household, it
is the government of the happy balance, of mediocrity, of chicanery.

Adolphe, enlightened by his past annoyances, waits for an opportunity to
explode, and Caroline slumbers in a delusive security.

What starts the quarrel? Do we ever know what electric current
precipitates the avalanche or decides a revolution? It may result
from anything or nothing. But finally, Adolphe, after a period to be
determined in each case by the circumstances of the couple, utters this
fatal phrase, in the midst of a discussion: "Ah! when I was a bachelor!"

Her husband's bachelor life is to a woman what the phrase, "My dear
deceased," is to a widow's second husband. These two stings produce
wounds which are never completely healed.

Then Adolphe goes on like General Bonaparte haranguing the Five Hundred:
"We are on a volcano!--The house no longer has a head, the time to come
to an understanding has arrived.--You talk of happiness, Caroline, but
you have compromised, imperiled it by your exactions, you have violated
the civil code: you have mixed yourself up in the discussions of
business, and you have invaded the conjugal authority.--We must reform
our internal affairs."

Caroline does not shout, like the Five Hundred, "Down with the
dictator!" For people never shout a man down, when they feel that they
can put him down.

"When I was a bachelor I had none but new stockings! I had a clean
napkin every day on my plate. The restaurateur only fleeced me of a
determinate sum. I have given up to you my beloved liberty! What have
you done with it?"

"Am I then so very wrong, Adolphe, to have sought to spare you numerous
cares?" says Caroline, taking an attitude before her husband. "Take
the key of the money-box back,--but do you know what will happen? I am
ashamed, but you will compel me to go on to the stage to get the merest
necessaries of life. Is this what you want? Degrade your wife, or bring
in conflict two contrary, hostile interests--"

Such, for three quarters of the French people is an exact definition of
marriage.

"Be perfectly easy, dear," resumes Caroline, seating herself in her
chair like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, "I will never ask you for
anything. I am not a beggar! I know what I'll do--you don't know me
yet."

"Well, what will you do?" asks Adolphe; "it seems impossible to joke or
have an expla