xpression plays, which indicates both curiosity and
indifference, seriousness and pleasantry, harshness and tenderness.
These little conjugal scenes are so full of vivacity, of tact and
address that it is a pleasure to take part in them. The very day on
which I took from the head of my wife the wreath of orange blossoms
which she wore, I understood that we were playing at a royal
coronation--the first scene in a comic pantomime!--I have my
gendarmes!--I have my guard royal!--I have my attorney general--that I
do!" he continued enthusiastically. "Do you think that I would allow
madame to go anywhere on foot unaccompanied by a lackey in livery? Is
not that the best style? Not to count the pleasure she takes in saying
to everybody, 'I have my people here.' It has always been a
conservative principle of mine that my times of exercise should
coincide with those of my wife, and for two years I have proved to her
that I take an ever fresh pleasure in giving her my arm. If the
weather is not suitable for walking, I try to teach her how to drive
with success a frisky horse; but I swear to you that I undertake this
in such a manner that she does not learn very quickly!--If either by
chance, or prompted by a deliberate wish, she takes measures to escape
without a passport, that is to say, alone in the carriage, have I not
a driver, a footman, a groom? My wife, therefore, go where she will,
takes with her a complete _Santa Hermandad_, and I am perfectly easy
in mind--But, my dear sir, there is abundance of means by which to
annul the charter of marriage by our manner of fulfilling it! I have
remarked that the manners of high society induce a habit of idleness
which absorbs half of the life of a woman without permitting her to
feel that she is alive. For my part, I have formed the project of
dexterously leading my wife along, up to her fortieth year, without
letting her think of adultery, just as poor Musson used to amuse
himself in leading some simple fellow from the Rue Saint-Denis to
Pierrefitte without letting him think that he had left the shadows of
St. Lew's tower."

"How is it," I said, interrupting him, "that you have hit upon those
admirable methods of deception which I was intending to describe in a
Meditation entitled _The Act of Putting Death into Life!_ Alas! I
thought I was the first man to discover that science. The epigrammatic
title was suggested to me by an account which a young doctor gave me
of an excellent com