one of our wittiest caricaturists closes his satiric observations:
"Man is not perfect!" It is sufficient, therefore, that our
institutions have no more disadvantages than advantages in order to be
reckoned excellent; for the human race is not placed, socially
speaking, between the good and the bad, but between the bad and the
worse. Now if the work, which we are at present on the point of
concluding, has had for its object the diminution of the worse, as it
is found in matrimonial institutions, in laying bare the errors and
absurdities due to our manners and our prejudices, we shall certainly
have won one of the fairest titles that can be put forth by a man to a
place among the benefactors of humanity. Has not the author made it
his aim, by advising husbands, to make women more self-restrained and
consequently to impart more violence to passions, more money to the
treasury, more life to commerce and agriculture? Thanks to this last
Meditation he can flatter himself that he has strictly kept the vow of
eclecticism, which he made in projecting the work, and he hopes he has
marshaled all details of the case, and yet like an attorney-general
refrained from expressing his personal opinion. And really what do you
want with an axiom in the present matter? Do you wish that this book
should be a mere development of the last opinion held by Tronchet, who
in his closing days thought that the law of marriage had been drawn up
less in the interest of husbands than of children? I also wish it very
much. Would you rather desire that this book should serve as proof to
the peroration of the Capuchin, who preached before Anne of Austria,
and when he saw the queen and her ladies overwhelmed by his triumphant
arguments against their frailty, said as he came down from the pulpit
of truth, "Now you are all honorable women, and it is we who
unfortunately are sons of Samaritan women"? I have no objection to
that either. You may draw what conclusion you please; for I think it
is very difficult to put forth two contrary opinions, without both of
them containing some grains of truth. But the book has not been
written either for or against marriage; all I have thought you needed
was an exact description of it. If an examination of the machine shall
lead us to make one wheel of it more perfect; if by scouring away some
rust we have given more elastic movement to its mechanism; then give
his wage to the workman. If the author has had the impertinence to
utter truths too harsh for you, if he has too often spoken of rare and
exceptional facts as universal, if he has omitted the commonplaces
which have been employed from time immemorial to offer women the
incense of flattery, oh, let him be crucified! But do not impute to
him any motive of hostility to the institution itself; he is concerned
merely for men and women. He knows that from the moment marriage
ceases to defeat the purpose of marriage, it is unassailable; and,
after all, if there do arise serious complaints against this
institution, it is perhaps because man has no memory excepting for his
disasters, that he accuses his wife, as he accuses his life, for
marriage is but a life within a life. Yet people whose habit it is to
take their opinions from newspapers would perhaps despise a book in
which they see the mania of eclecticism pushed too far; for then they
absolutely demand something in the shape of a peroration, it is not
hard to find one for them. And since the words of Napoleon served to
start this book, why should it not end as it began? Before the whole
Council of State the First Consul pronounced the following startling
phrase, in which he at the same time eulogized and satirized marriage,
and summed up the contents of this book:
"If a man never grew old, I would never wish him to have a wife!"
POSTSCRIPT.
"And so you are going to be married?" asked the duchess of the author
who had read his manuscript to her.
She was one of those ladies to whom the author has already paid his
respects in the introduction of this work.
"Certainly, madame," I replied. "To meet a woman who has courage
enough to become mine, would satisfy the wildest of my hopes."
"Is this resignation or infatuation?"
"That is my affair."
"Well, sir, as you are doctor of conjugal arts and sciences, allow me
to tell you a little Oriental fable, that I read in a certain sheet,
which is published annually in the form of an almanac. At the
beginning of the Empire ladies used to play at a game in which no one
accepted a present from his or her partner in the game, without saying
the word, _Diadeste_. A game lasted, as you may well suppose, during a
week, and the point was to catch some one receiving some trifle or
other without pronouncing the sacramental word."
"Even a kiss?"
"Oh, I have won the _Diadeste_ twenty times in that way," she
laughingly replied.
"It was, I believe, from the playing of this game, whose origin is
Arabian or Chinese, that my apologue takes its point. But if I tell
you," she went on, putting her finger to her nose, with a charming air
of coquetry, "let me contribute it as a finale to your work."
"This would indeed enrich me. You have done me so many favors already,
that I cannot repay--"
She smiled slyly, and replied as follows:
A philosopher had compiled a full account of all the tricks that women
could possibly play, and in order to verify it, he always carried it
about with him. One day he found himself in the course of his travels
near an encampment of Arabs. A young woman, who had seated herself
under the shade of a palm tree, rose on his approach. She kindly asked
him to rest himself in her tent, and he could not refuse. Her husband
was then absent. Scarcely had the traveler seated himself on a soft
rug, when the graceful hostess offered him fresh dates, and a cup of
milk; he could not help observing the rare beauty of her hands as she
did so. But, in order to distract his mind from the sensations roused
in him by the fair young Arabian girl, whose charms were most
formidable, the sage took his book, and began to read.
The seductive creature piqued by this slight said to him in a
melodious voice:
"That book must be very interesting since it seems to be the sole
object worthy of your attention. Would it be taking a liberty to ask
what science it treats of?"
The philosopher kept his eyes lowered as he replied:
"The subject of this book is beyond the comprehension of ladies."
This rebuff excited more than ever the curiosity of the young Arabian
woman. She put out the prettiest little foot that had ever left its
fleeting imprint on the shifting sands of the desert. The philosopher
was perturbed, and his eyes were too powerfully tempted to resist
wandering from these feet, which betokened so much, up to the bosom,
which was still more ravishingly fair; and soon the flame of his
admiring glance was mingled with the fire that sparkled in the pupils
of the young Asiatic. She asked again the name of the book in tones so
sweet that the philosopher yielded to the fascination, and replied:
"I am the author of the book; but the substance of it is not mine: it
contains an account of all the ruses and stratagems of women."
"What! Absolutely all?" said the daughter of the desert.
"Yes, all! And it has been only by a constant study of womankind that
I have come to regard them without fear."
"Ah!" said the young Arabian girl, lowering the long lashes of her
white eyelids.
Then, suddenly darting the keenest of her glances at the pretended
sage, she made him in one instant forget the book and all its
contents. And now our philosopher was changed to the most passionate
of men. Thinking he saw in the bearing of the young woman a faint
trace of coquetry, the stranger was emboldened to make an avowal. How
could he resist doing so? The sky was blue, the sand blazed in the
distance like a scimitar of gold, the wind of the desert breathed
love, and the woman of Arabia seemed to reflect all the fire with
which she was surrounded; her piercing eyes were suffused with a mist;
and by a slight nod of the head she seemed to make the luminous
atmosphere undulate, as she consented to listen to the stranger's
words of love. The sage was intoxicated with delirious hopes, when the
young woman, hearing in the distance the gallop of a horse which
seemed to fly, exclaimed:
"We are lost! My husband is sure to catch us. He is jealous as a
tiger, and more pitiless than one. In the name of the prophet, if you
love your life, conceal yourself in this chest!"
The author, frightened out of his wits, seeing no other way of getting
out of a terrible fix, jumped into the box, and crouched down there.
The woman closed down the lid, locked it, and took the key. She ran to
meet her husband, and after some caresses which put him into a good
humor, she said:
"I must relate to you a very singular adventure I have just had."
"I am listening, my gazelle," replied the Arab, who sat down on a rug
and crossed his feet after the Oriental manner.
"There arrived here to-day a kind of philosopher," she began, "he
professes to have compiled a book which describes all the wiles of
which my sex is capable; and then this sham sage made love to me."
"Well, go on!" cried the Arab.
"I listened to his avowal. He was young, ardent--and you came just in
time to save my tottering virtue."
The Arab leaped to his feet like a lion, and drew his scimitar with a
shout of fury. The philosopher heard all from the depths of the chest
and consigned to Hades his book, and all the men and women of Arabia
Petraea.
"Fatima!" cried the husband, "if you would save your life, answer me
--Where is the traitor?"
Terrified at the tempest which she had roused, Fatima threw herself at
her husband's feet, and trembling beneath the point of his sword, she
pointed out the chest with a prompt though timid glance of her eye.
Then she rose to her feet, as if in shame, and taking the key from her
girdle presented it to the jealous Arab; but, just as he was about to
open the chest, the sly creature burst into a peal of laughter. Faroun
stopped with a puzzled expression, and looked at his wife in
amazement.
"So I shall have my fine chain of gold, after all!" she cried, dancing
for joy. "You have lost the _Diadeste_. Be more mindful next time."
The husband, thunderstruck, let fall the key, and offered her the
longed-for chain on bended knee, and promised to bring to his darling
Fatima all the jewels brought by the caravan in a year, if she would
refrain from winning the _Diadeste_ by such cruel stratagems. Then, as
he was an Arab, and did not like forfeiting a chain of gold, although
his wife had fairly won it, he mounted his horse again, and galloped
off, to complain at his will, in the desert, for he loved Fatima too
well to let her see his annoyance. The young woman then drew forth the
philosopher from the chest, and gravely said to him, "Do not forget,
Master Doctor, to put this feminine trick into your collection."
"Madame," said I to the duchess, "I understand! If I marry, I am bound
to be unexpectedly outwitted by some infernal trick or other; but I
shall in that case, you may be quite sure, furnish a model household
for the admiration of my contemporaries."
PARIS, 1824-29.