ive copies of which were printed by Pierre Didot. It is
from copy No. 24 that the author has transcribed this tale, hitherto
unpublished, and, strange to say, attributed to Dorat. It has the merit
of yielding important lessons for husbands, while at the same time it
gives the celibates a delightful picture of morals in the last century.

MEDITATION XXV. OF ALLIES.

Of all the miseries that civil war can bring upon a country the greatest
lies in the appeal which one of the contestants always ends by making to
some foreign government.

Unhappily we are compelled to confess that all women make this great
mistake, for the lover is only the first of their soldiers. It may be
a member of their family or at least a distant cousin. This Meditation,
then, is intended to answer the inquiry, what assistance can each of the
different powers which influence human life give to your wife? or better
than that, what artifices will she resort to to arm them against you?

Two beings united by marriage are subject to the laws of religion and
society; to those of private life, and, from considerations of health,
to those of medicine. We will therefore divide this important Meditation
into six paragraphs:

1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION
WITH MARRIAGE.
2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.
3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.
4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES.
5. OF THE MAID.
6. OF THE DOCTOR.

1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH
MARRIAGE.

La Bruyere has very wittily said, "It is too much for a husband to have
ranged against him both devotion and gallantry; a woman ought to choose
but one of them for her ally."

The author thinks that La Bruyere is mistaken.

2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.

Up to the age of thirty the face of a woman is a book written in a
foreign tongue, which one may still translate in spite of all the
_feminisms_ of the idiom; but on passing her fortieth year a woman
becomes an insoluble riddle; and if any one can see through an old
woman, it is another old woman.

Some diplomats have attempted on more than one occasion the diabolical
task of gaining over the dowagers who opposed their machinations; but if
they have ever succeeded it was only after making enormous concessions
to them; for diplomats are practiced people and we do not think that you
can employ their recipe in dealing with your mother-in-law. She wil