d if he touched any woman but his wife, and still
this excellent prince is of a very amorous temperament. Thus the queen
obtains her every wish. She has placed castors on her husband's bed.
If he refuses her anything, she pushes the bed away. If he grants her
request, the beds stand side by side, and she admits him into hers. And
so the king is highly delighted, since he likes -----' I will not go any
further, gentlemen, for the virtuous frankness of the German princess
might in this assembly be charged with immorality."

Should wise husbands adopt these beds on castors? This is the problem
which we have to solve.

The unanimity of the vote left no doubt about the opinion of the
assembly. I was ordered to inscribe in the records, that if two married
people slept on two separate beds in the same room the beds ought not to
be set on castors.

"With this proviso," put in one of the members, "that the present
decision should have no bearing on any subsequent ruling upon the best
arrangement of the beds of married people."

The president passed to me a choicely bound volume, in which was
contained the original edition, published in 1788, of the letters of
Charlotte Elizabeth de Baviere, widow of the Duke of Orleans, the only
brother of Louis XIV, and, while I was transcribing the passage already
quoted, he said:

"But, gentlemen, you must all have received at your houses the
notification in which the second question is stated."

"I rise to make an observation," exclaimed the youngest of the jealous
husbands there assembled.

The president took his seat with a gesture of assent.

"Gentlemen," said the young husband, "are we quite prepared to
deliberate upon so grave a question as that which is presented by the
universally bad arrangement of the beds? Is there not here a much wider
question than that of mere cabinet-making to decide? For my own part I
see in it a question which concerns that of universal human intellect.
The mysteries of conception, gentlemen, are still enveloped in a
darkness which modern science has but partially dissipated. We do not
know how far external circumstances influence the microscopic beings
whose discovery is due to the unwearied patience of Hill, Baker, Joblot,
Eichorn, Gleichen, Spallanzani, and especially of Muller, and last of
all of M. Bory de Saint Vincent. The imperfections of the bed opens up a
musical question of the highest importance, and for my part I declare
I shall write t