ll the commercial
establishments possible in France.

Here we have a million husbands represented.

But at what figure shall we count those who have an income of fifty, of
a hundred, of two, three, four, five, and six hundred francs only, from
consols or some other investment?

How many landed proprietors are there who pay taxes amounting to no more
than a hundred sous, twenty francs, one hundred francs, two hundred, or
two hundred and eighty?

At what number shall we reckon those of the governmental leeches, who
are merely quill-drivers with a salary of six hundred francs a year?

How many merchants who have nothing but a fictitious capital shall we
admit? These men are rich in credit and have not a single actual sou,
and resemble the sieves through which Pactolus flows. And how many
brokers whose real capital does not amount to more than a thousand, two
thousand, four thousand, five thousand francs? Business!--my respects to
you!

Let us suppose more people to be fortunate than actually are so. Let
us divide this million into parts; five hundred thousand domestic
establishments will have an income ranging from a hundred to three
thousand francs, and five thousand women will fulfill the conditions
which entitle them to be called honest women.

After these observations, which close our meditation on statistics, we
are entitled to cut out of this number one hundred thousand individuals;
consequently we can consider it to be proven mathematically that there
exist in France no more than four hundred thousand women who can furnish
to men of refinement the exquisite and exalted enjoyments which they
look for in love.

And here it is fitting to make a remark to the adepts for whom we write,
that love does not consist in a series of eager conversations, of nights
of pleasure, of an occasional caress more or less well-timed and a spark
of _amour-propre_ baptized by the name of jealousy. Our four hundred
thousand women are not of those concerning whom it may be said, "The
most beautiful girl in the world can give only what she has." No,
they are richly endowed with treasures which appeal to our ardent
imaginations, they know how to sell dear that which they do not possess,
in order to compensate for the vulgarity of that which they give.

Do we feel more pleasure in kissing the glove of a grisette than in
draining the five minutes of pleasure which all women offer to us?

Is it the conversation of a shop-girl which m