always succeeded an ephemeral Liberal cabinet. The orators of a
national party resemble the rats which wear their teeth away in
gnawing the rotten panel; they close up the hole as soon as they smell
the nuts and the lard locked up in the royal cupboard. The woman is
the Whig of our government. Occupying the situation in which we have
left her she might naturally aspire to the conquest of more than one
privilege. Shut your eyes to the intrigues, allow her to waste her
strength in mounting half the steps of your throne; and when she is on
the point of touching your sceptre, fling her back to the ground,
quite gently and with infinite grace, saying to her: "Bravo!" and
leaving her to expect success in the hereafter. The craftiness of this
manoeuvre will prove a fine support to you in the employment of any
means which it may please you to choose from your arsenal, for the
object of subduing your wife.

Such are the general principles which a husband should put into
practice, if he wishes to escape mistakes in ruling his little
kingdom. Nevertheless, in spite of what was decided by the minority at
the council of Macon (Montesquieu, who had perhaps foreseen the coming
of constitutional government has remarked, I forget in what part of
his writings, that good sense in public assemblies is always found on
the side of the minority), we discern in a woman a soul and a body,
and we commence by investigating the means to gain control of her
moral nature. The exercise of thought, whatever people may say, is
more noble than the exercise of bodily organs, and we give precedence
to science over cookery and to intellectual training over hygiene.



MEDITATION XI.