ount these Pompadours of the village among the feminine
population.

Our first calculation is based upon the statistical discovery that in
France there are eighteen millions of the poor, ten millions of people
in easy circumstances and two millions of the rich.

There exist, therefore, in France only six millions of women in whom
men of sentiment are now interested, have been interested, or will be
interested.

Let us subject this social elite to a philosophic examination.

We think, without fear of being deceived, that married people who have
lived twenty years together may sleep in peace without fear of having
their love trespassed upon or of incurring the scandal of a lawsuit for
criminal conversation.

From these six millions of individuals we must subtract about two
millions of women who are extremely attractive, because for the last
forty years they have seen the world; but since they have not the power
to make any one fall in love with them, they are on the outside of
the discussion now before us. If they are unhappy enough to receive no
attention for the sake of amiability, they are soon seized with ennui;
they fall back upon religion, upon the cultivation of pets, cats,
lap-dogs, and other fancies which are no more offensive than their
devoutness.

The calculations made at the Bureau of Longitudes concerning population
authorize us again to subtract from the total mentioned two millions of
young girls, pretty enough to kill; they are at present in the A B C
of life and innocently play with other children, without dreading that
these little hobbledehoys, who now make them laugh, will one day make
them weep.

Again, of the two millions of the remaining women, what reasonable man
would not throw out a hundred thousand poor girls, humpbacked, plain,
cross-grained, rickety, sickly, blind, crippled in some way, well
educated but penniless, all bound to be spinsters, and by no means
tempted to violate the sacred laws of marriage?

Nor must we retain the one hundred thousand other girls who become
sisters of St. Camille, Sisters of Charity, monastics, teachers, ladies'
companions, etc. And we must put into this blessed company a number of
young people difficult to estimate, who are too grown up to play with
little boys and yet too young to sport their wreath of orange blossoms.

Finally, of the fifteen million subjects which remain at the bottom of
our crucible we must eliminate five hundred thousand other i