must first be
a smaller number of _cocottes_. It is not impossible, indeed, that if
the approachable-irreproachable young ladies were more numerous, the
_cocottes_ would be less numerous. If by some ingenious sumptuary
enactment the latter class could be sequestrated or relegated to the
background for a certain period--say ten years--the latter might
increase and multiply, and quite, in vulgar parlance, get the start of
it.

And yet after all this is a rather superficial reflection, for the
excellent reason that the very narrow peep at life allowed to young
French girls is not regarded, either by the young girls themselves or by
those who have their felicity most at heart, as a grave privation. The
case is not nearly so hard as it would be with us, for there is this
immense difference between the lot of the _jeune fille_ and her American
sister, that the former may as a general thing be said to be certain to
marry. "Ay, to marry ill," the Anglo-Saxon objector may reply. But the
objection is precipitate; for if French marriages are almost always
arranged, it must be added that they are in the majority of cases
arranged well. Therefore, if a _jeune fille_ is for three or four years
tied with a very short rope and compelled to browse exclusively upon the
meagre herbage which sprouts in the maternal shadow, she has at least
the comfort of reflecting that according to the native phrase, _on
s'occupe de la marier_--that measures are being carefully taken to
promote her to a condition of unbounded liberty. Whatever, to her
imagination, marriage may fail to mean, it at least means freedom and
consideration. It does not mean, as it so often means in America, being
socially shelved--and it is not too much to say, in certain circles,
degraded; it means being socially launched and consecrated. It means
becoming that exalted personage, a _mere de famille_. To be a _mere de
famille_ is to occupy not simply (as is rather the case with us) a
sentimental, but a really official position. The consideration, the
authority, the domestic pomp and circumstance allotted to a French mamma
are in striking contrast with the amiable tolerance which in our own
social order is so often the most liberal measure that the female parent
may venture to expect at her children's hands, and which, on the part of
the young lady of eighteen who represents the family in society, is not
infrequently tempered by a conscientious severity. All this is worth
waiti