consecrated to the sanctity of marriage;
hence, sprang the institution of censors, the law of dowries, the
sumptuary laws, the respect for matrons and all the characteristics
of the Roman law. Moreover, three acts of feminine violation either
accomplished or attempted, produced three revolutions! And was it not
a grand event, sanctioned by the decrees of the country, that these
illustrious women should make their appearances on the political
arena! Those noble Roman women, who were obliged to be either brides
or mothers, passed their life in retirement engaged in educating the
masters of the world. Rome had no courtesans because the youth of the
city were engaged in eternal war. If, later on, dissoluteness appeared,
it merely resulted from the despotism of emperors; and still the
prejudices founded upon ancient manners were so influential that Rome
never saw a woman on a stage. These facts are not put forth idly in
scanning the history of marriage in France.

After the conquest of Gaul, the Romans imposed their laws upon the
conquered; but they were incapable of destroying both the profound
respect which our ancestors entertained for women and the ancient
superstitions which made women the immediate oracles of God. The Roman
laws ended by prevailing, to the exclusion of all others, in this
country once known as the "land of written law," or _Gallia togata_,
and their ideas of marriage penetrated more or less into the "land of
customs."

But, during the conflict of laws with manners, the Franks invaded the
Gauls and gave to the country the dear name of France. These warriors
came from the North and brought the system of gallantry which had
originated in their western regions, where the mingling of the sexes did
not require in those icy climates the jealous precautions of the East.
The women of that time elevated the privations of that kind of life by
the exaltation of their sentiments. The drowsy minds of the day made
necessary those varied forms of delicate solicitation, that versatility
of address, the fancied repulse of coquetry, which belong to the system
whose principles have been unfolded in our First Part, as admirably
suited to the temperate clime of France.

To the East, then, belong the passion and the delirium of passion, the
long brown hair, the harem, the amorous divinities, the splendor, the
poetry of love and the monuments of love.--To the West, the liberty of
wives, the sovereignty of their blond locks