Thévenin declares that he had rather turn fakir,
and pass his whole life in contemplation, than
espouse one of these empty, stupid, proud, and
pretentious women, who believe themselves
musicians because they can get through a polka,
distinguished because they are draped with a
cashmere, and well-born because they don't
know the price of butter!

Who would believe that, in this respect, the
French ought to take example by the people
reputed the most mercantile on the face of the
earth? The English, those pitiless dealers in
Bibles, cotton, and opium!  The English, whom
we (the French) justly regard so attached to
material interests; these English strip off their
usual character when the choice of a companion
is in question.  A clever writer (M. Perdonnet),
while sketching George Stephenson's biography,
observes: "Many people will consider that he
fell in love in a perilous, uncalculating, very
bold, and very rash way.  In fact, he was
smitten by two bright eyes which did not
possess a single penny."

"This is a crime with us," is M. Thévenin's
comment.  "Love, in France, as Benjamin
Constant has said, is no more than a
juxtaposition; and one of the causes of England's
superiority over France, is that, with our
neighbours, marriage is considered as a happy and
agreeable association destined to soften, by
sharing them, the burdens of life.  With us,
on the contrary, it is a cash affair.  Marriages
of inclination are so superior to money matches,
that it would be puerile to insist upon the point.
Every man who has the sentiment of
individuality, understands it thoroughly.  A man and a
woman united by love are millionnaires without
knowing it; they have the strength and the
riches of the heart."

The Abbé Bautain has written, in his
Mariage du Jour, "For a man of right feeling, it
must always be a shame and a self-reproach to
owe his elevation and his existence to having
caught the affections of a wealthy girl." It is
the dowry, therefore, which is the grand
stumbling-stone of matrimony.  Far from being the
principal consideration, it should be held as an
accessory, to be kept quite in the background;
and to be obliged to insist on so evident a fact,
is the severest criticism it is possible to inflict.
If the heart is not the first and only thing to be
consulted in matrimony, let us have the courage
to say so, and to call by some name other than
"marriage" commercial associations regulated
by debit and credit.  That a woman possesses
a respectable cash-box, is no reason for turning
one's back on her; but the cash-box should
never be admitted as an argument in her favour:
especially as "women with portions are mostly
spendthrifts, while portionless women are given
to saving."

Touching the matrimonial dispositions
consequent on this state of things, and at present
current in the capital of France, M. Edmond
About humorously relates what a country
friend, whom we will call M. Vigneron, saw
and heard during a recent visit to the
metropolis.  This friend is a plain and simple family
man, who had lived in Paris during his youth,
but who now goes to bed with the cocks and
hens, is fully occupied from morning till night,
and sleeps soundly from night till morning.
He is a great admirer of the fair sex, and an
in-door Don Quixote to redress their wrongs.
He is indignant when he sees a good-hearted
girl playing wallflower at a provincial ball, and
is disgusted that old maids should have been left
unmarried because they were not rich enough
to buy husbands.  Yet this philanthropist
returned rejoicing in the wonderful news of the
Bachelors' Strike.  The Parisiens have resolved
that, at no price whatever, will they contract
matrimony with the Parisiennes!

The conspiracy assumed its now formidable
proportions at the close of a ball given by his
chum and college friend, Léon S.  The evening,
without exaggeration, had been delightful, for
a ball at the close of the season. Vigneron
counted more than forty really pretty women,
married or single; and it is not very easy to
distinguish them, for they all wear the same
style of dress, and talk in the same way, as
near as may be.  You have nothing but the
diamonds to go by.  But many dames in good
society leave their diamonds at home in the
month of May.  The young men were very
brisk and active; they had not that foundered
look which you remark in them at the finish of
the carnival.  Spring-time had freshened up
their spirits, exactly as it was freshening the
sap in the trees.

With one or two exceptions, all the guests
remained till morning, and their appetite
exceeded the stock of provisions laid in by the
maître d'hôtel.  The public had to be divided
into three separate batches, while they sent out
to wake up the nearest restaurant.  Vigneron
made one of the final series, together with his
entertainer, Léon, and nine or ten intrepid
dancers, who cut and came again with equal
vigour.  As for himself, his appetite is rustic,
even when he happens to be in Paris; whether
he sleep, or whether he wake, it goes to bed at
eight o'clock, and all the cannon of the
Invalides would not rouse it.  He remained,
nevertheless, at Léon's entreaties, being the only
friend of his youth he now has left. He had
seven or eight, equally intimate, when he (Léon)
married in 1850.  Madame sent them about
their business, one after the other; this one
because his cravat was badly tied, another
because he was not sufficiently pious, a third
because he had married a too unpretending wife,
and a fourth because he did not like Gounod's
music. A Parisien chooses his friends himself;
but his wife revises the list, striking them out
sometimes to the very last.

When the third series had sweetened their
coffee and lighted their cigars, the conversation
grew animated, as will happen after plenty of
champagne. Vigneron, who had taken nothing
but a cup of tea, contributed his share by some
profound reflections on the secret harmonies
which connect the institution of marriage with