A highly educated American woman of my acquaintance once employed a French
tutor in Paris to assist her in teaching Latin to her little grandson. The
Frenchman brought with him a Latin grammar, written in his own language,
with which my friend was quite pleased, until she came to a passage
relating to the masculine gender in nouns, and claiming grammatical
precedence for it on the ground that the male sex is the noble
sex,--"_le sexe noble_." "Upon that," she said, "I burst forth in
indignation, and the poor teacher soon retired. But I do not believe,"
she added, "that the Frenchman has the slightest conception, up to this
moment, of what I could find in that phrase to displease me."
I do not suppose he could. From the time when the Salic Law set French
women aside from the royal succession, on the ground that the kingdom of
France was "too noble to be ruled by a woman," the claim of nobility has
been all on one side. The State has strengthened the Church in this theory,
the Church has strengthened the State; and the result of all is, that
French grammarians follow both these high authorities. When even the good
Père Hyacinthe teaches, through the New York "Independent," that the
husband is to direct the conscience of his wife, precisely as the father
directs that of his child, what higher philosophy can you expect of any
Frenchman than to maintain the claims of "_le sexe noble_"?
We see the consequence, even among the most heterodox Frenchmen. Rejecting
all other precedents and authorities, the poor Communists still held to
this. Consider, for instance, this translation of a marriage contract under
the Commune, which lately came to light in a trial reported in the "Gazette
des Tribunaux:"--