What! a king can abdicate his crown, and without the Pope's permission
he cannot abdicate his wife! Is it possible that otherwise enlightened
men have wallowed so long in this absurd servitude!

That our priests, that our monks renounce wives, to that I consent; it
is an outrage against population, it is a misfortune for them, but they
merit this misfortune which they have made for themselves. They have
been the victims of the popes who wanted to have in them slaves,
soldiers without families and without fatherland, living solely for the
Church: but I, magistrate, who serve the state all day, I need a wife in
the evening; and the Church has not the right to deprive me of a benefit
which God accords me. The apostles were married, Joseph was married, and
I want to be. If I, Alsacian, am dependent on a priest who dwells at
Rome, if this priest has the barbarous power to rob me of a wife, let
him make a eunuch of me for the singing of _Misereres_ in his chapel.


NOTE FOR WOMEN

Equity demands that, having recorded this note in favour of husbands, we
should also put before the public the case in favour of wives, presented
to the junta of Portugal by a Countess of Arcira. This is the substance
of it:

The Gospel has forbidden adultery for my husband just as for me; he will
be damned as I shall, nothing is better established. When he committed
twenty infidelities, when he gave my necklace to one of my rivals, and
my ear-rings to another, I did not ask the judges to have him shaved, to
shut him up among monks and to give me his property. And I, for having
imitated him once, for having done with the most handsome young man in