not the dogmas of Frenchmen. The mothers,
who are so anxious to marry their daughters,
give them exactly the education which is
likely to lead to a divorce. What is the
national dogma of France? This: that, with
apparent change and movement, she changes not.
She resembles one of her own intermittent
lighthouses; she alternately displays and conceals
the flame, but the light in the focus is always
identical. And what focus? The Voltairean
spirit—long anterior to Voltaire himself—in the
first place; secondly, '89, or the grand laws of
the first Revolution; thirdly, the canons of her
scientific pope, the Académie des Sciences. This
is the faith of universal France, and is the reason
why foreigners condemn her in the lump, and
without distinction of parties.

But the daughters of France are trained to
hate and despise what every Frenchman loves
and believes. They are devoted to the past,
without being too well acquainted with what it
is. They readily listen to those who say with
Pascal, "Nothing is certain; therefore, let us
believe in the absurd." In France, women are
rich, they are exceedingly clever, and they have
every means of learning. But they choose not
to learn anything, nor to create a faith of their
own. If they meet with a man who holds a
serious faith, a man of heart who believes and
loves all ascertained truths, they say with a smile,
"This gentleman believes in nothing."

And now, to speak only of the first obstacle
alleged—the unbridled pride of women, their
madness after dress, and so forth—it would seem
that this is especially addressed to the upper
classes, to rich ladies, or to those who have
occasion to mix with the rich world—to some two
or three hundred thousand ladies. But do you
know how many marriageable women there are
in France? Eighteen million eighteen hundred
thousand. It would be unjust to accuse all these
in a body, of the errors and absurdities of high
society. If they copy them at a distance, it is not
always of their own free will. The great ladies,
by their example, and often heedlessly by their
contempt and ridicule, are the cause of great
sorrow in this respect. They impose an
impossible degree of luxury upon poor women who
sometimes care nothing about it, but who, from
their position, on account of serious interests, are
obliged to make a certain show, and who, in
order to shine, rush headlong into the most
hazardous positions. But women who have a
common destiny of their own, and an extensive
community of secrets, ought to love and sustain
each other a little, instead of waging an internecine
war. They injure each other in a thousand
things, indirectly. The rich lady, whose splendour
alters the style of dress of the poorer classes,
does great injury to the young girl. She prevents
her marrying; no worker cares to espouse a doll
who costs such a deal of money to dress.
Remaining single, she becomes, perhaps, a
shopwoman, or something of that kind; but even
here the great lady injures her again, preferring
to have to do with a shopman in a black coat,
with a flattering tongue, and more effeminate
than a woman.

The barbarism of our Western World! Woman
has ceased to be valued as constituting the love,
the happiness of man, and still less for her
maternal qualities as the sustainer of a race of
men; she is reckoned as an ouvrière—a work-
woman! Ouvrière! Impious and sordid word,
which no language would have ever possessed,
and no epoch would have understood, before
this iron age, and which alone suffices to
outweigh all our pretended progress. At this enter
the crowded bands of economists and doctors of
net profits, remonstrating, "But, sir, consider
the high social and economical necessity!
Manufactures, if shackled, must cease. In the name
of the indigent classes themselves!"—etcetera.

The highest of all necessities is, to exist; and,
visibly, the nation is perishing. The population
does not increase in numbers, and it does decline
in quality. The peasant woman is dying of hard
labour, and the workwoman of starvation. What
children can you expect from mothers like these?
Abortions, more and more abortive. " But a
people does not perish entirely!" Several peoples
—even those who still figure on the map are no
longer in existence.

Two peoples are to be seen in the towns of
France; the one, clad in cloth: that's man; the
other, in wretched printed calico: that's woman.
The one—we will take the lowest labourer—
the worst paid, the hodman, the servant of other
workmen—will contrive to eat meat for breakfast
(a slice of smoked sausage or something else
as a thumb-piece on bread). In the evening he
steps into his gargote, or eating-house, where he
will have a plate of meat, and even some bad
wine. A woman of the same condition will take
a sou's (halfpenny) worth of milk in the morning,
some bread at noon, and some bread at night,
hardly a sou's worth of cheese. You don't
believe it? It is certain, as shall shortly be proved.
Her day's work produces ten sous, "and cannot
produce eleven," for a reason which shall be
explained. Why are things come to this wretched
state? The man does not choose to marry; he
does not choose to protect and be burdened with
the woman. He lives in gluttonous solitude.
Does he, therefore, lead a life of abstinence? He
abstains from nothing. It makes one blush to
be a man.

"I do not earn enough," he says. He earns
four or five times more than the woman, in the
majority of trades. He earns forty or fifty sous,
and she ten. The poverty of the workman would
be for the workwoman wealth, abundance, and
luxury. When bread is dear, a woman cannot
pinch, she cannot descend lower in the dietary
scale; by dropping a single degree, she must die
of inanition. " It is all their own fault," says the
economist. " Why were they so crazy as to leave
the country, and perish of hunger in the towns?"

My dear sir, do you know anything about the
country in France? How terrible, excessive, and