I.
An honest woman is necessarily a married woman.
II.
An honest woman is under forty years old.
III.
A married woman whose favors are to be paid for is not an honest
woman.
IV.
A married woman who keeps a private carriage is an honest woman.
V.
A woman who does her own cooking is not an honest woman.
VI. When a man has made enough to yield an income of twenty thousand
francs, his wife is an honest woman, whatever the business in which his
fortune was made.
VII. A woman who says “letter of change” for letter of exchange, who
says of a man, “He is an elegant gentleman,” can never be an honest
woman, whatever fortune she possesses.
VIII.
An honest woman ought to be in a financial condition such as forbids
her lover to think she will ever cost him anything.
IX.
A woman who lives on the third story of any street excepting the Rue
de Rivoli and the Rue de Castiglione is not an honest woman.
X. The wife of a banker is always an honest woman, but the woman who
sits at the cashier’s desk cannot be one, unless her husband has a very
large business and she does not live over his shop.
XI. The unmarried niece of a bishop when she lives with him can pass
for an honest woman, because if she has an intrigue she has to deceive
her uncle.
XII.
An honest woman is one whom her lover fears to compromise.
XIII.
The wife of an artist is always an honest woman.
By the application of these principles even a man from Ardeche can
resolve all the difficulties which our subject presents.
In order that a woman may be able to keep a cook, may be finely
educated, may possess the sentiment of coquetry, may have the right to
pass whole hours in her boudoir lying on a sofa, and may live a life of
soul, she must have at least six thousand francs a year if she lives in
the country, and twenty thousand if she lives at Paris. These two
financial limits will suggest to you how many honest women are to be
reckoned on in the million, for they are really a mere product of our
statistical calculations.
Now three hundred thousand independent people, with an income of
fifteen thousand francs, represent the sum total of those who live on
pensions, on annuities and the interest of treasury bonds and
mortgages.
Three hundred thousand landed proprietors enjoy an income of three
thousand five hundred francs and represent all territorial wealth.
Two hundred thousand payees, at the rate of fifteen hundred francs
each, represent the distribution of public funds by the state budget,
by the budgets of the cities and departments, less the national debt,
church funds and soldier’s pay, (i.e. five sous a day with allowances
for washing, weapons, victuals, clothes, etc.).
Two hundred thousand fortunes amassed in commerce, reckoning the
capital at twenty thousand francs in each case, represent all 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 makes you expect boundless
delights?
In your intercourse with a woman who is beneath you, the delight of
flattered _amour-propre_ is on her side. You are not in the secret of
the happiness which you give.
In a case of a woman above you, either in fortune or social position,
the ticklings of vanity are not only intense, but are equally shared. A
man can never raise his mistress to his own level; but a woman always
puts her lover in the position that she herself occupies. “I can make
princes and you can make nothing but bastards,” is an answer sparkling
with truth.
If love is the first of passions, it is because it flatters all the
rest of them at the same time. We love with more or less intensity in
proportion to the number of chords which are touched by the fingers of
a beautiful mistress.
Biren, the jeweler’s son, climbing into the bed of the Duchesse de
Courlande and helping her to sign an agreement that he should be
proclaimed sovereign of the country, as he was already of the young and
beautiful queen, is an example of the happiness which ought to be given
to their lovers by our four hundred thousand women.
If a man would have the right to make stepping-stones of all the heads
which crowd a drawing-room, he must be the lover of some artistic woman
of fashion. Now we all love more or less to be at the top.
It is on this brilliant section of the nation that the attack is made
by men whose education, talent or wit gives them the right to be
considered persons of importance with regard to that success of which
people of every country are so proud; and only among this class of
women is the wife to be found whose heart has to be defended at all
hazard by our husband.
What does it matter whether the considerations which arise from the
existence of a feminine aristocracy are or are not equally applicable
to other social classes? That which is true of all women exquisite in
manners, language and thought, in whom exceptional educational
facilities have developed a taste for art and a capacity for feeling,
comparing and thinking, who have a high sense of propriety and
politeness and who actually set the fashion in French manners, ought to
be true also in the case of women whatever their nation and whatever
their condition. The man of distinction to whom this book is dedicated
must of necessity possess a certain mental vision, which makes him
perceive the various degrees of light that fill each class and
comprehend the exact point in the scale of civilization to which each
of our remarks is severally applicable.
Would it not be then in the highest interests of morality, that we
should in the meantime try to find out the number of virtuous women who
are to be found among these adorable creatures? Is not this a question
of marito-national importance?