'On the other hand, the Englishwoman is less agreeable : she does not dress for her husband, she does not know how to make a pretty woman of herself; she has no talent for rendering herself fascinating and enticing at home; she is unacquainted with a number of fine and delicate graces; she considers it unworthy of her to employ minor means for re-awakening love or fondness; more frequently still she is not clever enough to invent them. She puts on handsome new dresses, is most careful about cleanliness, but nothing more; she is not attractive; one soon wearies beside her. Fancy a very beautiful pink peach, slightly juicy, and alongside of it a perfumed strawberry full of flavour.'

But let us look a little closer at the perfumed strawberry: let us see if there is not a small maggot at the

core.

There is a small piece now [1834] acting at one of the minor theatres called " Pourquoi." It is very popular; everybody goes to see it, and says, "it is so true." What tale lies hid under this mysterious title? "There are two married friends living together. The wife of one is charming, always ready to obey and to oblige; her husband's will is her law. Nothing puts her out of humour. This couple live on the best of terms, and the husband is as happy as husband can desire to be. Now for the other pair! Here is continual wrangling and dispute. The wife will have her own way in the merest trifles as on the gravest matters. . . . In short, nothing can be so disagreeable as this good lady is to her grumbling but submissive helpmate. Happiness and misery were never to all appearance brought more fairly face to face than in

these two domestic establishments. 'Why' is one wife such a pattern of good nature and submission? 'Why' is the other such a detestable shrew? This is the pourquoi. The spouse whom you shrink from in such justifiable horror is as faithful as woman can be. The spouse whom you cling to as such a pillow of comfort, is an intriguing hussy. Hear, O ye French husbands! you must not expect your wives to have at the same time chastity and good temper: the qualities are incompatible. Your eyes must be picked out or horns on your head must grow. This is the farce which is so popular.' This is the picture of manners which people call 'so true.'"'1

It is as true now as it was in 1834. In Célimare le Bien-Aimé, the hero, after devoting his youth to the wives of his neighbours, is induced by advancing years to take a wife of his own. The persons most discontented at this step are the husbands of the ladies whom he has been accustomed to honour with his attentions, and they complain bitterly that he no longer takes the smallest interest in them. The most successful scene is one in which they rival each other in the display of their fatuity. One of them, Bocardon, after dwelling on Célimare's kindness in training a dog for him, goes

on:

'One evening I came home with my dog, which I had taken out walking; I take him out every evening. I came to my wife's room; all of a sudden Minotaur rushes to the door of the closet; he begins scratching and barking. I

1 Bulwer's France, vol. i. p. 94.

thought is was a rat, or a thief; I opened the closet; it was Célimare.

'Vernouillet (the other husband, aside). What a thing for him to tell!

'Bocardon. It was my wife who had hidden him, to see if Minotaur would find him, and he did find him.

Emma (the bride). All this is very agreeable. 'Bocardon. Wasn't it funny?

Vernouillet (in a low tone to Bocardon, and putting him aside). Hold your tongue, can't you?

'Bocardon (surprised). What for?

'Vernouillet (to Emma). My wife had a parrot still more extraordinary than this dog. Célimare delighted in teaching it. Its cage was in the antechamber, and whenever it saw me coming in, it cried out: Voilà monsieur ! voilà monsieur!

'Bocardon (aside). He tells that to the wife! What a

fool!'

This is a mild specimen of the popular view taken of the relations between married people of the middle class in France. There is another stock piece of the French stage, from which an equal amount of instruction, with a sounder rule of conduct for both sexes, may be deduced. It is entitled, 'La Seconde Année, ou à Qui la Faute?' The marriage here is a marriage of affection: the young couple had seen each other, and become mutually attached, whilst the family arrangements were in progress. The first year passes like a prolonged honeymoon, but before the middle of the second, the husband indulges a hankering for his old haunts, steals off to his club, and renews his acquaintance with the actresses and opera-dancers à la

mode. A friend, Edmund, seizes the occasion to amuse Madame la Comtesse, and things are looking bad, when the husband receives a timely warning, and soliloquises somewhat in this fashion: 'It's all my own fault, and, luckily, it's not too late to mend. She liked me better than Edmund when we were both suitors, and, au fond, she likes me better still. Vulgar jealousy would be unworthy of us both. Strong measures are out of the question. Allons, I must be aux petits soins again.' He sets regularly to work to win her back; no longer lounges into her drawing-room to leave it, after reading his newspaper, with a yawn; lingers round her with marked interest, pays her graceful compliments, and lays the most beautiful bouquets on her dressing-table. This system is crowned with wellmerited success: the husband is reinstated in all the privileges of the lover, and M. Edmund, fairly beaten with his own weapons, is bowed out.

This piece, unexceptionable as it reads and acts in point of moral, could not be effectively adapted to the English stage, because it is out of keeping with our manners and modes of thinking to trifle with the duties and relations of married life, or to take for granted that infidelity is justified by neglect. Neither would such conjugal tactics have the attraction of novelty or originality for an English audience. Madame (at Paris) said, "The English are excellent people : when no one else makes love to their wives, they do it themselves." "Yes," added "I observed Mr.

6

(an Englishman,) the other evening talking to his wife for half an hour together."'1

Life of Mackintosh. By his Son.

Strengthened by the authority of his omnipresent and omniscient friend C-, M. Taine pronounces an Englishwoman to be incapable of presiding in a drawing-room like a Frenchwoman, to be consequently incapable of forming a salon:

'The Englishwoman has not sufficient tact, promptitude, suppleness to accommodate herself to persons and things, to vary a greeting, comprehend a hint, insinuate praise, make each guest feel that she thinks his presence of much consequence. She is affable only, she merely possesses kindness and serenity. For myself, I desire nothing more, and I can imagine nothing better. But it is clear that a woman of the world—that is to say, a person who wishes to make her house a place of meeting frequented and valued by the most distinguished persons of every species-requires to have a more varied and a more delicate talent.'

The talent in question has been possessed and displayed by many Englishwomen. Lady Palmerston, for example, had it in as high a degree of perfection as Madame Recamier, of whom Tocqueville says, "The talent, labour, and skill which she wasted in her salon would have gained and governed an empire.' 1 The salon jars with our habits: we cling too much to the

1 Senior, vol. ii. p. 209. The rest of the passage is curious. 'She was virtuous, if it be virtuous to persuade every one of a dozen men that you wish to favour him, though some circumstance always occurs to prevent your doing so. Every friend thought himself preferred. She governed us by little distinctions, by letting one man come five minutes before the others, or stay five minutes after; just as Louis XIV. raised one courtier to the seventh heaven by giving him the bougie, and another by leaning on his arm, or taking the shirt from him.'