Part 2 (1/2)
A highly educated American woman of my acquaintance once e Latin to her little grandson The Frenchuage, hich e relating to the raround that the male sex is the noble sex,--”_le sexe noble_” ”Upon that,” she said, ”I burst forth in indignation, and the poor teacher soon retired But I do not believe,”
she added, ”that the Frenchhtest conception, up to this moment, of what I could find in that phrase to displease me”
I do not suppose he could From the time when the Salic Law set French woround that the kingdom of France was ”too noble to be ruled by a woman,” the claithened the Church in this theory, the Church has strengthened the State; and the result of all is, that French graood Pere Hyacinthe teaches, through the New York ”Independent,” that the husband is to direct the conscience of his wife, precisely as the father directs that of his child, what higher philosophy can you expect of any Frenchman than to maintain the claims of ”_le sexe noble_”?
We see the consequence, even a all other precedents and authorities, the poor Communists still held to this Consider, for instance, this translation of a ht in a trial reported in the ”Gazette des Tribunaux:”--
FRENCH REPUBLIC
The citizen Anet, son of Jean Louis Anet, and the _citoyenne_ Maria Saint; she engaged to follow the said citizen everywhere and to love him always--ANET MARIA SAINT
Witnessed by the under-mentioned citizen and _citoyenne_--FOURIER
LAROCHE
PARIS, April 22, 1871
What a coement is this! Poor _citoyenne_ Maria Saint, even when all hurammar, still must annex herself to _le sexe noble_ She still must follow citizen Anet as the ferees with its nominative case in number and in person But hat a lordly freedoation does citizen Anet, representative of this nobility of sex, accept the allegiance! The citizenessas she is not in the way,--and she must ”love him always;” but he is not bound Why should he be? It would be quite ungrammatical
Yet, after all is said and done, there is a brutal honesty in this frank subordination of the worae consecration: ”Here, wolf, take thy la clearly, and made no nonsense about it I do not know that anywhere in France the wedding ritual is now so severely sies the bride is still own I should think she would be
THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR GRANDMOTHERS
Every young woeneration, so soon as she ventures to have a headache or a set of nerves, is irand, the fact of her existence is appealed to: if there is only a departed grandhost That ghost is endoith as many excellences as those hich Miss Betsey Trotwood endowed the niece that never had been born; and just as David Copperfield was reproached with the virtues of his unborn sister ould never have run away,” so that granddaughter with the headache is reproached with the ghostly perfections of her grandmother, who never had a headache--or, if she had, it is luckily forgotten It is necessary to ask, sorandmothers? Were they such models of bodily perfection as is usually claimed?
If we look at the early colonial days, we are at once er than is now common, yet this phenoood many childless ho over any family history; and he can also satisfy himself of the fact,--first pointed out, I believe, by Mrs Ball,--that third and fourth es were then obviously and unquestionably more common than now The inference would seem to be, that there is a little illusion about the health of those days, as there is about the health of savage races In both cases, it is not so reater under rude social conditions, as that these conditions kill off the weak, and leave only the strong Modern civilized society, on the other hand, preserves the health of many men and women--and permits them to e life or of pioneer life would have died, and given way to others
On this I will not dwell; because these pri farther rerandmothers,--the women of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary epochs,--we happen to have very definite physiological observations recorded; not very flattering, it is true, but frank and searching What these good woination of their descendants, we know Mrs
Stowe describes therow up in country places, and land kitchens of olden times;” and adds, ”This race of wo; and in their stead coe, drilled in book-learning, ignorant of cos”
What, noas the testirandood enerally French the presidency of Washi+ngton Let us take, for instance, the testi
The Abbe Robin was a chaplain in Rochaard to the Ae dans l'Amerique Septentrionale,” published in 1782:--
”They are tall and well-proportioned; their features are generally regular; their coenerally fair and without color
At twenty years of age the woer the freshness of youth At thirty-five or forty they are wrinkled and decrepit The ain: The Chevalier Louis Felix de Beaujour lived in the United States froe d'affaires;_ and wrote a book, ilish under the title, ”A Sketch of the United States at the Commencement of the Present Century”