ng," replied the duchess, "and I shudder with
fear for myself when I coolly consider people whom I have known in other
times. Wit always has a sparkle which wounds us, and the man who has
much of it makes us fear him perhaps, and if he is a proud man he will
be capable of jealousy, and is not therefore to our taste. In fact, we
prefer to raise a man to our own height rather than to have to climb
up to his. Talent has great successes for us to share in, but the fool
affords enjoyment to us; and we would sooner hear said 'that is a very
handsome man' than to see our lover elected to the Institute."

"That's enough, duchess! You have absolutely startled me."

And the young coquette began to describe the lovers about whom all the
women of her acquaintance raved; there was not a single man of intellect
among them.

"But I swear by my virtue," she said, "their husbands are worth more."

"But these are the sort of people they choose for husbands," the duchess
answered gravely.

"Tell me," asked the author, "is the disaster which threatens the
husband in France quite inevitable?"

"It is," replied the duchess, with a smile; "and the rage which
certain women breathe out against those of their sex, whose unfortunate
happiness it is to entertain a passion, proves what a burden to them is
their chastity. If it were not for fear of the devil, one would be Lais;
another owes her virtue to the dryness of her selfish heart; a third to
the silly behaviour of her first lover; another still--"

The author checked this outpour of revelation by confiding to the two
ladies his design for the work with which he had been haunted; they
smiled and promised him their assistance. The youngest, with an air of
gaiety suggested one of the first chapters of the undertaking, by saying
that she would take upon herself to prove mathematically that women who
are entirely virtuous were creatures of reason.

When the author got home he said at once to his demon:

"Come! I am ready; let us sign the compact."

But the demon never returned.

If the author has written here the biography of his book he has not
acted on the prompting of fatuity. He relates facts which may furnish
material for the history of human thought, and will without doubt
explain the work itself. It may perhaps be important to certain
anatomists of thought to be told that the soul is feminine. Thus
although the author made a resolution not to think about the book which
he was f