of all husbands,--for that world which calumniates and tears to shreds
her sex.

Inspired by true love, for Love has, like other creations, its
instinct of preservation, Madame Jules did very differently; she found
in the constant blessing of her love the necessary impulse to fulfil
all those minute personal cares which ought never to be relaxed,
because they perpetuate love. Besides, such personal cares and duties
proceed from a personal dignity which becomes all women, and are among
the sweetest of flatteries, for is it not respecting in themselves the
man they love?

So Madame Jules denied to her husband all access to her dressing-room,
where she left the accessories of her toilet, and whence she issued
mysteriously adorned for the mysterious fetes of her heart. Entering
their chamber, which was always graceful and elegant, Jules found a
woman coquettishly wrapped in a charming _peignoir_, her hair simply
wound in heavy coils around her head; a woman always more simple, more
beautiful there than she was before the world; a woman just refreshed
in water, whose only artifice consisted in being whiter than her
muslins, sweeter than all perfumes, more seductive than any siren,
always loving and therefore always loved. This admirable understanding
of a wife's business was the secret of Josephine's charm for Napoleon,
as in former times it was that of Caesonia for Caius Caligula, of
Diane de Poitiers for Henri II. If it was largely productive to women
of seven or eight lustres what a weapon is it in the hands of young
women! A husband gathers with delight the rewards of his fidelity.

Returning home after the conversation which had chilled her with fear,
and still gave her the keenest anxiety, Madame Jules took particular