railroads. The man, however weak he may be
morally, nevertheless advances so rapidly on a
line of ideas, inventions, and discoveries, that
the heated rail scatters sparks. The woman,
left behind through a sort of fatality, remains in
the wheel-rut of a past of which she herself is but
slightly cognisant. To our sorrow, she is
distanced; but she will not, or she cannot, travel
faster.

The worst is, that they do not seem in any
hurry to approach each other. They appear to
have nothing to say to each other. The hearth
is cold, the table silent, and the chamber icy.
People, they say, are not expected to put
themselves out for the sake of folks that belong to
them. But they don't take a bit more trouble in
the company of strangers, where politeness would
oblige them to act differently. Everybody can
see, any evening, how a drawing-room divides
into two drawing-rooms, one of men and another
of women. What is not seen often enough, and
what can be made the subject of experiment, is
that, in a small friendly party of a dozen persons,
if the lady of the house by a gentle violence
compel the two circles to mix and combine, by
obliging the gentlemen to converse with the
ladies, silence is induced; there is an end of
conversation.

The fact must be stated plainly, as it exists.
They have neither ideas in common, nor a
common language; and even on subjects which
might interest both parties, they do not know
how to talk. They have too much lost sight of
each other. Shortly, unless great care is taken,
in spite of accidental meetings, they will constitute
not two sexes, but two peoples. If the
French laws of succession did not make the
women rich, marriages would cease—at least, in
the large towns.

The motives which, at the present day, not only
cause matrimony to be feared, but which keep
men away from female society, are diverse and
complicated. The first, incontestably, is the
increasing poverty of multitudes of young women,
who are left without sufficient resources obtainable
by honest employment. Next, the energetic
and brilliant personality of French young ladies,
who too often take the upper hand the day after
the wedding, frightens the bachelor. There is no
joking in the matter: a Frenchwoman is somebody.
It gives you the chance of great happiness,
but sometimes, also, of a wretched life. The
excellent French civil laws (which are those of
future ages, and towards which the world is
gravitating) have not the less increased this
difficulty, which is inherent in the national character.
The Frenchwoman can inherit, and she knows it;
she has a dowry, and she knows it. The case is
quite different to that of certain neighbouring
countries, where the daughter, if she has a
portion, receives it in money only (a fluid which
leaks away into the husband's business or
property). In France, she possesses houses and
lands; and even if her brothers wish to pay her
the value, the national jurisprudence is opposed
to it, and maintains her rich in houses and lands,
guaranteed by the Régime Dotal, or by certain
stipulations. Her fortune is mostly tangible.
Her farms do not fly away, her tenements do not
tumble about her ears; there they remain,
immovable, giving her a voice in the chapter, and
keeping up a degree of personal importance
which is scarcely known to English or
to German ladies.

These latter are absorbed, as it were, by their
husband; they are lost in him, body and goods
(if they have any goods). Consequently, they
are more completely uprooted than Frenchwomen
are from their natal family, which would not care
to have them back again. The bride is reckoned
as good as dead to her relations, who are glad to
have provided for a daughter of whose future
maintenance they are entirely relieved. Happen
what may, and go where he will, she will follow
her husband, and will remain with him. On
such conditions, matrimony is a much less
formidable affair.

A curious thing in France, contradictory in
appearance, but not really so is that
"matrimonial ties are very weak, and family ties are
very strong." It will happen (especially amongst
the middle classes in the country) that a woman,
some time after marriage, when once she has
children, divides her heart and soul into two
portions; one she gives to her children, the other
to her relations, to the objects of her early
affections. What is left for the husband? Nothing.
The marriage is virtually annulled by the esprit
de famille. It is difficult to conceive how
wearisome such a woman is, barricading herself
up behind a retrograde past, reducing herself to
the level of her mother, whose mind is full of
superannuated notions, completely imbued with
bygone things. The husband " leads a quiet life,"
but he soon sinks discouraged, heavy, good for
nothing. He loses every progressive idea he had
gained during his studies and in young men's
society. He is soon extinguished by the Dame
Propriétaire, by the heavy suffocation of the old
family hearth.

One thing hinders some bachelors from getting
married; all workers are poor in France. They
live on their salary, they live on their clients or
patients, and so on; they just live. Suppose a
man earns six thousand francs a year; many a
woman whom he might think would suit him,
spends as much as that in dress. Women are
brought up to it by their mothers. Even if they
consent to give him one of these fine young
ladies, what is to become of him the day
afterwards, when she discovers that she has left a
rich house for a poor one? If her husband really
love her—which is possible—imagine the
wretchedness and basenesses to which he might be
tempted, for the sake of becoming just a little
rich, and of displeasing his fair one just a little
less.

For others, the grand impediment is the
lady's religion. Yes, really; her religion.
Frenchwomen are brought up to dogmas which are