"Present company always excepted."

And then every one will have the right to believe, _in petto_, that he
forms the exception. But our duty, the interest which we take in
husbands and the keen desire which we have to preserve young and
pretty women from the caprices and catastrophes which a lover brings
in his train, force us to give notice to husbands that they ought to
be especially on their guard.

In this recapitulation first are to be reckoned the husbands whom
business, position or public office calls from their houses and
detains for a definite time. It is these who are the standard-bearers
of the brotherhood.

Among them, we would reckon magistrates, holding office during
pleasure or for life, and obliged to remain at the Palace for the
greater portion of the day; other functionaries sometimes find means
to leave their office at business hours; but a judge or a public
prosecutor, seated on his cushion of lilies, is bound even to die
during the progress of the hearing. There is his field of battle.

It is the same with the deputies and peers who discuss the laws, of
ministers who share the toils of the king, of secretaries who work
with the ministers, of soldiers on campaign, and indeed with the
corporal of the police patrol, as the letter of Lafleur, in the
_Sentimental Journey_, plainly shows.

Next to the men who are obliged to be absent from home at certain
fixed hours, come the men whom vast and serious undertakings leave not
one minute for love-making; their foreheads are always wrinkled with