re of rhetoric by which you
make it express the opposite of that which it signifies; but all my
researches have been in vain. Vert-Vert used the word last, and was
unfortunately addressed to the innocent nuns whose infidelities did not
in any way infringe the honor of the men. When a woman is _inconsistent_
the husband must be, according to me, _minotaurized_. If the
minotaurized man is a fine fellow, if he enjoys a certain esteem,--and
many husbands really deserve to be pitied,--then in speaking of him, you
say in a pathetic voice, 'M. A--- is a very estimable man, his wife
is exceedingly pretty, but they say he is not happy in his domestic
relations.' Thus, madame, the estimable man who is unhappy in his
domestic relations, the man who has an inconsistent wife, or the husband
who is minotaurized are simply husbands as they appear in Moliere. Well,
then, O goddess of modern taste, do not these expressions seem to you
characterized by a transparency chaste enough for anybody?"

"Ah! mon Dieu!" she answered, laughing, "if the thing is the same,
what does it matter whether it be expressed in two syllables or in a
hundred?"

She bade me good-bye, with an ironical nod and disappeared, doubtless to
join the countesses of my preface and all the metaphorical creatures,
so often employed by romance-writers as agents for the recovery or
composition of ancient manuscripts.

As for you, the more numerous and the more real creatures who read my
book, if there are any among you who make common cause with my conjugal
champion, I give you notice that you will not at once become unhappy in
your domestic relations. A man arrives at this conjugal condition
not suddenly, but insensibly and by degrees. Many husbands have even
remained unfortunate in their domestic relations during their whole life
and have never known it. This domestic revolution develops itself in
accordance with fixed rules; for the revolutions of the honeymoon are as
regular as the phases of the moon in heaven, and are the same in every
married house. Have we not proved that moral nature, like physical
nature, has its laws?

Your young wife will never take a lover, as we have elsewhere said,
without making serious reflections. As soon as the honeymoon wanes, you
will find that you have aroused in her a sentiment of pleasure which you
have not satisfied; you have opened to her the book of life; and she has
derived an excellent idea from the prosaic dullness which dis