s again to leave them, like scorched cats that dread the
fire. But this scene is a veritable alexipharmaca, the doses of which
should be measured out by prudent hands.

For certain women of delicate nerves, whose souls are soft and timid,
it would be sufficient to point out the lurking-place where the lover
lies, and say: "M. A----z is there!" [at this point shrug your
shoulders]. "How can you thus run the risk of causing the death of two
worthy people? I am going out; let him escape and do not let this
happen again."

But there are women whose hearts, too violently strained in these
terrible catastrophes, fail them and they die; others whose blood
undergoes a change, and they fall a prey to serious maladies; others
actually go out of their minds. These are examples of women who take
poison or die suddenly--and we do not suppose that you wish the death
of the sinner.

Nevertheless, the most beautiful and impressionable of all the queens
of France, the charming and unfortunate Mary Stuart, after having seen
Rizzio murdered almost in her arms, fell in love, nevertheless, with
the Earl of Bothwell; but she was a queen and queens are abnormal in
disposition.

We will suppose, then, that the woman whose portrait adorns our first
Meditation is a little Mary Stuart, and we will hasten to raise the
curtain for the fifth act in this grand drama entitled _Marriage_.

A conjugal catastrophe may burst out anywhere, and a thousand
incidents which we cannot describe may give it birth. Sometimes it is
a handkerchief, as in _Othello_; or a pair of slippers, as in _Don
Juan_; sometimes it is the mistake of your wife, who cries out--"Dear
Alphonse!" instead of "Dear Adolph!" Sometimes a husband, finding out
that his wife is in debt, will go and call on her chief creditor, and
will take her some morning to his house, as if by chance, in order to
bring about a catastrophe. "Monsieur Josse, you are a jeweler and you
sell your jewels with a readiness which is not equaled by the
readiness of your debtors to pay for them. The countess owes you
thirty thousand francs. If you wish to be paid to-morrow [tradesmen
should always be visited at the end of the month] come to her at noon;
her husband will be in the chamber. Do not attend to any sign which
she may make to impose silence upon you--speak out boldly. I will pay
all."

So that the catastrophe in the science of marriage is what figures are
in arithmetic.

All the principles of