e a great game at cards,
the rules of which have been settled beforehand, and the winnings
devoted to the use of the greatest number; well, a woman ought never to
take a hand in it. Her place should be at the player's elbow, to warn
and advise him, to point out an unperceived chance, to share in his
success, more than all to console him, should luck run against him.
Thus, whilst all her better qualities would be brought into play, all
her weaker would not in any wise be at stake.

We would put it, therefore, to the womanly conscience--Is it not a
hundred times more honourable to exercise, so to speak, rights that are
legitimately recognised, though wisely limited, than to suffer in
consideration, and often in reputation, from an usurpation always
certain of being disputed?

It has been the author's endeavour to show the truth of these
conclusions by tracing the political career of certain well-born and
singularly-gifted women--women whose lofty courage, strength of mind,
keen introspection, political zeal, and genius for intrigue enabled them
to baffle and make head against some of the greatest political male
celebrities of modern history, without, however, winning us over to
their opinions or their cause; women who, in some instances, after
passing the best period of their lives in political strife, in
fostering civil war, in hatching perilous plots, and who, having cast
fortune and all the "gentle life" to the winds, preferred exile to
submission, or to wage a struggle as fruitless as it was unceasing;
until having arrived at the tardy conviction of its futility, and that
they had devoted their existence to the pursuit of the illusory and the
chimerical, they found at length repose and tranquillity only in
solitude and repentance.

In the stirring careers of certain among these remarkable personages, it
will be seen that the mainspring of their political zeal was either the
fierce excitement of an overmastering passion, an irresistible
proclivity to gallantry, or an absorbing ambition, rather than any
patriotic motive. This may go far to explain the singular sagacity,
finesse, and energy displayed in their devotion to what otherwise
appears alike mischievous and chimerical by those three high-born and
splendidly-gifted women who figured so conspicuously in the civil war of
the Fronde; and, though so much self-abnegation, courage, constancy, and
heroism, well or ill displayed, may obtain some share of pardon for
er