: I make haste to bring out and present myself to them; for
I will not have them mistaken in me, in anything. Amongst other
particular customs of our ancient Gauls, this, as Caesar reports,--[De
Bello Gall., vi. r8.]--was one, that the sons never presented
themselves before their fathers, nor durst ever appear in their company
in public, till they began to bear arms; as if they would intimate by
this, that it was also time for their fathers to receive them into their
familiarity and acquaintance.

I have observed yet another sort of indiscretion in fathers of my time,
that, not contented with having deprived their children, during their own
long lives, of the share they naturally ought to have had in their
fortunes, they afterwards leave to their wives the same authority over
their estates, and liberty to dispose of them according to their own
fancy. And I have known a certain lord, one of the principal officers of
the crown, who, having in reversion above fifty thousand crowns yearly
revenue, died necessitous and overwhelmed with debt at above fifty years
of age; his mother in her extremest decrepitude being yet in possession
of all his property by the will of his father, who had, for his part,
lived till near fourscore years old. This appears to me by no means
reasonable. And therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man,
whose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife who encumbers his estate
with a very great fortune; there is no sort of foreign debt that brings
more ruin to families than this: my predecessors have ever been aware of
that danger and provided against it, and so have I. But those who
dissuade us from rich wives, for fear they should be less tractable and
kind, are out in their advice to make a man lose a real commodity for so
frivolous a conjecture. It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass
over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are
most wrong. Injustice allures them, as the honour of their virtuous
actions does the good; and the more riches they bring with them, they are
so much the more good-natured, as women, who are handsome, are all the
more inclined and proud to be chaste.

'Tis reasonable to leave the administration of affairs to the mothers,
till the children are old enough, according to law, to manage them; but
the father has brought them, up very ill, if he cannot hope that, when
they come to maturity, they will have more wisdom and ability