of the last day's session, in
which about two hundred guests participated.

The present situation in France is full of interest and
encouragement. There are societies, journals, and different groups
of reformers all striving independently but earnestly to better the
situation of French women politically, civilly, morally and
intellectually. At the head of the agitation in favor of women's
political rights stand Hubertine Auclert and her vigorous monthly,
_La Citoyenne_[570]; the reformers of the code are lead by Leon
Richer and his outspoken monthly, _Le Droit des Femmes_[571]; the
movement in favor of divorce, which was crowned with success in the
summer of 1884, is headed by Alfred Naquet in the senate, and finds
one of its earliest and ablest supporters in Olympe Audouard; the
emancipation of women from priestly domination--and herein lies the
greatest and most dangerous obstacle that the reformers
encounter--counts among its many advocates Maria Deraismes; woman's
moral improvement, to be mainly accomplished by the abolition of
legalized prostitution, is demanded by Dr. and Mrs. Chapman and
Emilie de Morsier; while the great uprising in favor of woman's
education has such a host of friends and has already produced such
grand results, that the brief limits of this sketch will permit
neither an enumeration of the one nor the other.

* * * * *

The transition from France to Italy is easy and natural, for it is
on the Cisalpine peninsula that Gallic ideas have always taken
deeper root than elsewhere on the Continent, and, as might be
expected, the Italian woman movement resembles in many respects
that of which we have just spoken.

With the formation of the kingdom of Italy in 1870 began a
well-defined agitation in favor of Italian women. The educational
question was first taken up. Prominent among the women who
participated in this movement were Laura Mantegazza, the
Marchioness Brigida Tanari, and Alessandrina Ravizza. Aurelia
Cimino Folliero de Luna, who has devoted her whole life to
improving the condition of her countrywomen, writes me from
Florence on this subject. "Here it was," she says, "that the
example of American and English women, who in this respect were
our superiors, was useful to us. While we were still under foreign
domination and ignorant of solidarity of sex, they were free and
united." The new political life produced a number of able women
orators and writers,