t the moment that he is
newly married, we declare that if he has found a wife of sanguine
temperament, of vivid imagination, of a nervous constitution or of an
indolent character, his situation cannot fail to be extremely serious.

A man would find himself in a position of danger even more critical if
his wife drank nothing but water [see the Meditation entitled
_Conjugal Hygiene_]; but if she had some talent for singing, or if she
were disposed to take cold easily, he should tremble all the time; for
it must be remembered that women who sing are at least as passionate
as women whose mucous membrane shows extreme delicacy.

Again, this danger would be aggravated still more if your wife were
less than seventeen; or if, on the other hand, her general complexion
were pale and dull, for this sort of woman is almost always
artificial.

But we do not wish to anticipate here any description of the terrors
which threaten husbands from the symptoms of unhappiness which they
read in the character of their wives. This digression has already
taken us too far from the subject of boarding schools, in which so
many catastrophes are hatched, and from which issue so many young
girls incapable of appreciating the painful sacrifices by which the
honest man who does them the honor of marrying them, has obtained
opulence; young girls eager for the enjoyments of luxury, ignorant of
our laws, ignorant of our manners, claim with avidity the empire which
their beauty yields them, and show themselves quite ready to turn away
from the genuine utterances of the heart, while they readily listen to
the buzzing of flattery.

This Meditation should plant in the memory of all who read it, even
those who merely open the book for the sake of glancing at it or
distracting their mind, an intense repugnance for young women educated
in a boarding school, and if it succeeds in doing so, its services to
the public will have already proved considerable.

MEDITATION VII.

OF THE HONEYMOON.

If our meditations prove that it is almost impossible for a married
woman to remain virtuous in France, our enumeration of the celibates
and the predestined, our remarks upon the education of girls, and our
rapid survey of the difficulties which attend the choice of a wife
will explain up to a certain point this national frailty. Thus, after
indicating frankly the aching malady under which the social slate is
l