u could not tell me in a more tactful manner that we have
been married five months!" replied the Duke, whose repartee made his
fortune in the reign of Louis XV.

She will study your character in order to find weapons against you. Such
a study, which love would hold in horror, reveals itself in the thousand
little traps which she lays purposely to make you scold her; when a
woman has no excuse for minotaurizing her husband she sets to work to
make one.

She will perhaps begin dinner without waiting for you.

If you drive through the middle of the town, she will point out certain
objects which escaped your notice; she will sing before you without
feeling afraid; she will interrupt you, sometimes vouchsafe no reply to
you, and will prove to you, in a thousand different ways, that she is
enjoying at your side the use of all her faculties and exercising her
private judgment.

She will try to abolish entirely your influence in the management of
the house and to become sole mistress of your fortune. At first this
struggle will serve as a distraction for her soul, whether it be empty
or in too violent commotion; next, she will find in your opposition a
new motive for ridicule. Slang expressions will not fail her, and in
France we are so quickly vanquished by the ironical smile of another!

At other times headaches and nervous attacks make their appearance;
but these symptoms furnish matter for a whole future Meditation. In the
world she will speak of you without blushing, and will gaze at you with
assurance. She will begin to blame your least actions because they are
at variance with her ideas, or her secret intentions. She will take no
care of what pertains to you, she will not even know whether you have
all you need. You are no longer her paragon.

In imitation of Louis XIV, who carried to his mistresses the bouquets of
orange blossoms which the head gardener of Versailles put on his table
every morning, M. de Vivonne used almost every day to give his wife
choice flowers during the early period of his marriage. One morning he
found the bouquet lying on the side table without having been placed, as
usual, in a vase of water.

"Oh! Oh!" said he, "if I am not a cuckold, I shall very soon be one."

You go on a journey for eight days and you receive no letters, or you
receive one, three pages of which are blank.--Symptom.

You come home mounted on a valuable horse which you like very much, and
between her kisses your wif