ion of love. Sometimes it may
happen that in an interregnum of love too long protracted, the wife,
whether from whim, temptation or the desire of novelty, undertakes to
seduce her own husband.

Imagine charming Mme. de T-----, the heroine of our Meditation of
_Strategy_, saying with a fascinating smile:

"I never before found you so agreeable!"

By flattery after flattery, she tempts, she rouses curiosity, she
soothes, she rouses in you the faintest spark of desire, she carries
you away with her, and makes you proud of yourself. Then the right
of indemnifications for her husband comes. On this occasion the wife
confounds the imagination of her husband. Like cosmopolitan travelers
she tells tales of all the countries which she had traversed. She
intersperses her conversation with words borrowed from several
languages. The passionate imagery of the Orient, the unique emphasis of
Spanish phraseology, all meet and jostle one another. She opens out the
treasures of her notebook with all the mysteries of coquetry, she is
delightful, you never saw her thus before! With that remarkable art
which women alone possess of making their own everything that has been
told them, she blends all shades and variations of character so as to
create a manner peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen
only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen
of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the
giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on _The
First Symptoms_. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport
under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician
girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself to and fro; the
Chalcidian woman overcomes you by the witchery of her fine and snowy
feet; the Unelmane comes and speaking the dialect of fair Ionia reveals
the treasures of happiness unknown before, and in the study of which she
makes you experience but a single sensation.

Filled with regret at having disdained so many charms, and frequently
tired of finding too often as much perfidiousness in priestesses of
Venus as in honest women, the husband sometimes hurries on by his
gallantry the hour of reconciliation desired of worthy people. The
aftermath of bliss is gathered even with greater pleasure, perhaps, than
the first crop. The Minotaur took your gold, he makes restoration in
diamonds. And really now seems the time to state a f