ch give
value to the unit. But if the people wish to take an active part in the
government, immediately they are treated, like Sancho Panza, on that
occasion when the squire, having become sovereign over an island on
terra firma, made an attempt at dinner to eat the viands set before him.

"Now we ought to parody this admirable scene in the management of our
homes. Thus, my wife has a perfect right to go out, provided she tell
me where she is going, how she is going, what is the business she is
engaged in when she is out and at what hour she will return. Instead of
demanding this information with the brutality of the police, who will
doubtless some day become perfect, I take pains to speak to her in the
most gracious terms. On my lips, in my eyes, in my whole countenance,
an expression 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 w