l coronet."

"But, monsieur," I said, interrupting him, "while I perfectly agree
with you on this last point, the question remains, how will you escape
giving an answer to the just demands of your wife?"

"Sir" he replied, "I shall do--I shall answer as the government
answers, that is, those governments which are not so stupid as the
opposition would make out to their constituents. I shall begin by
solemnly interdicting any arrangement, by virtue of which my wife will
be declared entirely free. I fully recognize her right to go wherever
it seems good to her, to write to whom she chooses, and to receive
letters, the contents of which I do not know. My wife shall have all
the rights that belong to an English Parliament; I shall let her talk
as much as she likes, discuss and propose strong and energetic
measures, but without the power to put them into execution, and then
after that--well, we shall see!"

"By St. Joseph!" said I to myself, "Here is a man who understands the
science of marriage as well as I myself do. And then, you will see,
sir," I answered aloud, in order to obtain from him the fullest
revelation of his experience; "you will see, some fine morning, that
you are as big a fool as the next man."

"Sir," he gravely replied, "allow me to finish what I was saying. Here
is what the great politicians call a theory, but in practice they can
make that theory vanish in smoke; and ministers possess in a greater
degree than even the lawyers of Normandy, the art of making fact yield
to fancy. M. de Metternich and M. de Pilat, men of the highest
authority, have been for a long time asking each other whether Europe
is in its right senses, whether it is dreaming, whether it knows
whither it is going, whether it has ever exercised its reason, a thing
impossible on the part of the masses, of nations and of women. M. de
Metternich and M. de Pilat are terrified to see this age carried away
by a passion for constitutions, as the preceding age was by the
passion for philosophy, as that of Luther was for a reform of abuses
in the Roman religion; for it truly seems as if different generations
of men were like those conspirators whose actions are directed to the
same end, as soon as the watchword has been given them. But their
alarm is a mistake, and it is on this point alone that I condemn them,
for they are right in their wish to enjoy power without permitting the
middle class to come on a fixed day from the depth of each of