CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library arV14555 Love ("L'amour") / 3 1924 031 388 600 olin,anx Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031388600 MICHELET'S BOOKS. Uniform with this voiuiui^ I.— LOVE (l'amoub.; n.— WOMAN (LA FEMMa.) These remarkflbie books have produced an ImpreBsion npontlie read- ing public almost without a parallel in late years. iSuch audacity and delicncy, such rigorous analysis and tender sentiment, were-sca-rcely ever before so artistically and elTectivelj' com- bined. The style is fit for its important theme — digni- fledj eloquent, virtuous, and chaste. *#*Publi6hed uniform with this volume, price $1.50,— sent free by mail on receipt of price BY Carleton, Publisher, LOVE. ("S'mmuw*") From the French ot M. J. MICHELET, OW THZ TXGUhTg OF LBTTEEB^ CHIEF IN THE HI8T0KI0AI* SECTION OF TIIM ] nONAL AECmVES, AUTHOR OF " A HIBTOET OF FKANOE," " HI8T0EY OF HUB ROWAN REPUBLIC," "MEM01E8 OF lUTHER," "iNTSO- VHOnON TC UNIVERSAL HIBTOST," " L'INSEOTI," *• l'oiskau.'* BTa. ma Translated from the Fourth Paris Edition, by J. W. Palmer, M.D. Sntfior of " Wfit Ntto anl] Ege ®ni;* " SSp anil @obn t^s lEiratnatitJV ttr. NEW YOEK: Carhton, Publisher, Madison Square. PARIS : L. HACHBTTE ET C". M DCCQ LXX. Entered accoTdlng to Act of Congress, In the jear 1S5I, hj EITDD & OAKLETON, U the Clerk's Office of .the District Court of the United States for tse BontBen District of New Totk. Translator's Preface. This translation of a remarkable book is presented to the public in the sincere belief that it .will do good — ^in the hope that it will halp American htisbands aod wives to perceive, and to feel more deeply, certain things which, neglected, are often causes of lasting sorrow, in &milies that ought to be happy. The author, eminent as a savant and a historian, by the position he holds in the world of letters commands beforehand our attention and respect; and this volume, in which he gives us the result of the obser- vations of a lifetime, deserves our most serious consideration. The discoveries that have been made during the last half century, in regard to the physiology of woman, he has tamed to the purpose of his work with stirring earnestness and eloquence. The book itself is a very bold one — and its boldness is its beauty, for it is the boldness of chas- tity, of a lofty and a tender morality. Hence I have thought it judicious to render it without expurgation, and as nearly as posBibl« In Michelet's own forms of expression. VI Translator's Preface. The intenae interest wHoh " L'Amovir" has excited in Paris and Iiondot since its appearance in January last, seemed to have created a call for its immediate production in this country ; and in the necessarily short time allowed by the publishers, it would have been impossible for the whole task to be correctly performed by any one person. Tlierefore, to my friends Feank 'Wood and B. Ellis Maetin, Esqs., of this city, by whom the original hurried draft of this translation was made, I here acknowledge my great indebtedness, J. W. P. New Tobe, May 20, 1859. Missing Page viii Table of Contents. in. — THE ORIGIN OF THIS BOOK.. The idea of this book dates from 1836.— It was confirmed in 1844._The confidence that young people reposed in the author. — The assistance he derived from the friendship of iUustrioufl physicians. — ^Yoluntaiy fataUty, the habits, and the art of Love. — The form of this book, 28 IT.-T-THB MUTUAL DELIVEIJANOB OF THE MAN AND THE WOMAN. Pugef s Andromeda rescued. — Deliverance of the woman by the man. — Deliverance of the man by the woman. — A wife and an occupation. — The future spouse will be a guard to the young man, 33 §ook Jirst CBEATION OF TEE BELOVED. I ■Woman. — ^How much she differs from man. — The point m which she is superior ...''.... 43 n. Woman an Invalid. — ^TllB poetry of her peculiar orisia. — She i& not capricious but barometric. — How much she needs attention, 44 m. Woman should woek but little. — She is a very poor worker. — Doing nothing, she does everything, . . .49 rV. The Man should eabn enoush foe both. — The Gospel which woman is to man. — A wife is a fortune in herself, . 62 V What shall the Beide be? — ^Rich or poor? — Of the same race? — Of the same class T ....... U Table ' of Contents. ix VX Should rou choose a FEEiroHWOMAif ? — ^The English, German, Spanish, and Italian women. — The intelligence, bril- liancy, and oreoocity of the French woman. — Marriage makes her beautiful, 6B Vli. 'WOMAS EEQUIKES STABILITT AND COMPLETENESS M Love. — She ia, in all history, the element of stability. — For her The end of marriage is marriage itself (and maternity second- joily). — She invests in it more than the man does; hence every change is to her disadvantage. — ^Accidental epidemics of fickle- ness, desire of dress, &c. — The beloved is susceptible of an infinite renewing, 6$ Vin. Toil MUST OHEATB TOUB WIPE; SHE HEESELP DESIBES NO- THiNO BETTEH. — ^Modem lovB loves what it finds, less than what it creates, 67 tX. Am I ftt to create a Woman? — The most blas^ man may stiU love. — Marriage is generally a deliverance for the girL' — ^The French mother is so unreasonable as to be more beautiful than her daughter. — Marriage and happiness will em- bellish the latter. — The wife (of 19?) feels that her husband (of 28?) is triply her superior in knowledge and experience, and in his occupation. — Science must be humanized for her. — She is old by education, and he is young, . • , . 6> INniATION AMD COMMDNION. L— Love in a Cottase. — ^What .nfluenoe have you over wo- man in society? Ko influence. In solitude 7 Every influencek —It would be otherwise in a better state of society. — ^The relative solitude of a tradeswomao, though surroimded by the X Table of Contents. public. — ^In the beginning, howeVer, Love needs meditation — What the little house should be, M CL Makriaqb. — (In Roman law) Marriage is consent. — Is the new wife sufBoiently protected by the Church, the State^ the Pamily ? — She trusts only in him, 8E IIL The "Wedding. — The bridegroom should pretect the young wife against himself — The modem girl is not fiill-blooded. — Predominance of the nervous temperament. — Unjust distrust and scorn. — ^Agitation often makes her iU. — ^He should be scrupulously considerate for her, 91 rv. The Awakenino. The Touno Misteess of the House. — Quiet and solitude should be secured to her. — She inspects the house, its appointments, and the garden prepared for her, . 96 V. Nareowino the Home Ciecle. — ^The closer we are, the more we love each other. — Our houses are divided too much into little rooms. — ^Rembrandt's interiors. — The young wife's presence does not distract the husband from his work; . . 102 VL The Table — Diet. — To arrange and change her diet with care. — He nourishes her, she nourishes him, and they live through each other, . . .... 108 Vn. Thet SHonU) WAIT ON each other. — An honest courtry girl for a servant is enough. — ^Tha husband as the servant of the wife. — To him who loves, the realities of nature do not at all impair the ideal, j j q Vm. Hygiene.— How important it is, in the beginning, that he should take possession of her who is to take such possession of him. — That he should study, attentively, the details of her physical life; should be discreet, and conciliate, without wounding the girlish timidities that still cling to her. Country life, &a, j2j IX On INTELLEOT0AL PEonNDATiOM. — She longs to belong to Table of Contents. jci him ; still more, to be mentally possessed by Mm. — The diffi- culty of teaching a woman. — ^Tou must not give her aliment stronger than she can digest. — Plant in her the living germs of thought. — Too much reading wearies her mind. — ^Lot hor preserve " the velvet-down of her soul," ; . . ,121 X, On Moral Incubation. — The woman wishes for no other aliment than the heart of her beloved, and has none nowa- days. — ^Tou must, from her restricted love, lead her out to the great love. — She is incapable of dividing and subtracting, having as her mission incarnation,. — ^Her life rhytjuuical, and scanned from month to month. — This division of time must be respected, and its ascending period turned to advantage. — She should not be fatigued in her time of gloom — She thinks, while working with her hands. — ^Docile, and not servile, she broods over the germ in silence. — ^Advantages of a bed in common, for moral and religious communications, etc. — A beautifiil and noble cause is needed, to melt her young heart, . 134 TEE mOABNATION OF VOTE. L COKOEPTION. — ^The woman is very noble in love. — She risks her life to bestow happiness on the man. — She is influenced much less by her physical attractions than by her kindliness, her need of pleasing, of consoling, and renewing the heart of man. — Conception should be free and voluntary, , . , HS IL PEEQNANcr AND THE STATE OF Gbace. — The womau only meditates a superhuman inf^t, and it is this that endows her offgprmg. — ^Tbe miracle of a new world that she bears within xii Table of Contents. hor. — Sho herself haa received a second life, and finds b.ersell transformed. — The childishness of a pregnant -woman. — All nature is on her side, and so should the law be, . . . 15i ril. The Result of Peegnanot: The ErvAii. — ^The woman already belongs to the child. — Her sacrifice to fulfil two duties. — Submission and purity, 162 IV. Confinement. — ^The husband's terrors. — The woman in labor prefers the midwife, the husband the doctor. — Danger has created a new bond between them. — Cruel condition of the woman. — ^Atlas of Messrs. Gerbe and Cosle, . . . 166 V. Lting-in and Conyalesoence. — The husband is the best nurse. — ^The happiness of the wife when nursed by him. — What the wife's recompense should be. — The husband's recom- »nse, Ita THE LANamSHINa OF LOTS. r. NtJBSDJG AND EsTEANQEMBirr. — ^The wife blends her two love* as in a dream. — The infant unites and separates them. — ^He haa taken his father's place, 183 H. The Butterflt. — The wife concentrating herself over the cradle, the husband disperses himself abroad.— The over- wheUning variety of modem society conspires against the woman and the home. — And yet the man in her alone pre- serves his divine spark, 188 in. The Totroa Mother separated from her Son. She suf- fers when he ia unhappy at school, and still more when he is contented there. — ^Her sadness, her first glimpse of the world, 194 Table of Contents. xii'i rV. Op the WoiujD — Has the Husband DBaENEBAiBD ? — By hia speciality and Ms occupation he has acquired strength, but he has ' lost in brilliancy and elevation. — The modem man, a worker aiid a creator, has not the symmetry of the man of ancient times (the hero). — Society prefers the amateur, and favors him with the wife against the interests of the husband- — Is it true that woman is a disappointer of justice ? — Novels. — The strong man is not afraid of novels. — GranvUle. — La Victoire, , .199 V. The Spides ajstd the Ply. — How. women ruin women.— Stratagem, or semi-violence. — The wife often betrays her hus- band through affection for \iim. — Did she reaUy consent ? — The endless degrees of which the will is susceptible. — Courts of justice need the continual presence of a medical jury to determine the proportions of freedom and compulsion, . .211 VI. Temptatiok. — The woman at her meridian of life and health. — The purest may be troubled, loving him whom her husband loves, 228 VII. A Rose fob a CouifSELLOE. — Let her listen to her consci- ence and the voice of innocent nature, which will guard her purity. — Humiliation of her who feels herself weak and yield- ing. — Recourse to conjugal confession. — Conjugal discipline besought and refused. — She is treated with gentleness, enlight- ened, and reeondijcted to the path of reason. — The error of the heart often is, that it regards as the faculty and merit of the individual what belongs to a whole nation or race, *. 2.10 VIII. TpE Medioation of the Heabt. — ^The fearful consequences of the wife's adultery. — ^In general she is far from foreseeing these; she sins through heedlessness, and is often visited by terrible remorse. — Examples. — The most common causes of her fall are ennui and idleness. — Do not forsake her, whatever she may bave done. — The woman, having given herself up entireff xiv Table of Contents. in marrisffe, and being transforiSed hy impregnation, lose* everytning by divorce.— Never strike her, no matter liow she has sinned.— A case in which her conscience will prompt her to expiation. — The best remedy is to remove her from ovil , surroundings; to purify and renew her, if possible, by travel. . 341 IX. Medication op the Body. — ^After plethora and passion, come wealjness and illness. — This is the test of love. — Ray- mond Lulli and M * * *. — Misery of the woman, who fears she will be an object of disgust. — The husband alone should attend her. — She already perceptibly gains, by feeling herself inclosed in him, and by unburdening herself to him. — No cure without confession. — To remove her fears of death. — The hus- band should be her priest, and if pessible, her physician. — He alone knows her perfectly, for he has in great measure made her. — ^Nothing heals such an invalid sooner than the know- ledge that she is loved and desired. .... 1st THE REJUVENESCENCE OF LOVE. L "Woman's Second Touth. — ^Her sadness. — She is already enfeebled when man is at the acme of his strength. — Even the successes of the husband separate her from him. — ^He is so much thef more exposed to the temptations of the. world. — She becomes his zealous assistant, hij young partner and comiad? in business or pleasure. — She understands his most subtile thought,, and returns it embellished to him, . , . jg^q IT. She peesoStbes and regulates bis Diet and his Recrk- ATIONS. — The good Circo.— She watches over and sedulously attends to the repasts of her husband.-^She preaerres him from Table of Contents. xv exceases. — Man has more desire as he advanjeain life — To the weaiy and care-worn man, pleasure is a consolation. — A good wife is the entertainment, the child of the house, and the Divine Comedy, ' 211 'I. She refines his Mind, or dispires it.— A calm wife harmonizes the mind, and imparts perfect olf iirness to the in- ventive faculties. — Even the Middle-Ages oiilj accomplished their tlu'ee great works through married men. — Planned abstinences; the morning impulses of Puget. — Contact with a pure woman purifies a man. — Love postponed, by love, has affinities with the sublime, 264 IV. There are no Old "Women. — The great modem artists have deeply felt the beauty of goodness, and have preferred to paint the suffering and already mature woman. — The face grows old long before the body. — Amplitude of fojm is favorable to the expression of goodness. — A generation which should only love young girls, and should not be refined by intercourse with women, would remain for ever gross. — A woman who loves, and who is good, can, at any age, bestow happiness, and endow a young man, 291 T. AuTUMNAl AspiEATiOMS. — Sadness and fears of the matured woman. — To be separated by death. — To grow old, and not justify the cherished illusion of him who loves. — ^How she can make herself beautiful. — Superiority of this acquired beauty, jvhlch is not an accident of race, family, etc. — ^The graceful things that were impossible to youth, 2M VJ. Is TJnitt Obtained? — Each accession of years has added . one more bond to the imion. — AH desire is at first an idea ; love can always renew itself by ideas ; hence time is no obstacle to it. — The only obstacle to an absolute union is in the essence of love itaelf ; as long as they live they must remain two. — ^The xvi Table of Contents. woman jnolines towards mercy, and with difficulty (bUows man in the path of justice, '"^ VIL Death and Affliotion. — Death has followed love in this book, to strengthen and prolong it. — It is for the man to die, for the woman to weep, ..'....■ 308 VIIL Of Lotb beyond the Geatb.— Like rejoins like. — In becoming like the departed, she rejoins him. — The widow is, his retarded soul. — She preserves his memory, keops together, and multiplies the number o^ his friends, loves him more and more in the growth of his posthumous renown, . . 318 ^ottB mil ®j:p[hnation». Of the three Parts, of whi«h a complete work on Love shoald consist, the Author has given in this volume only the second. — ^He regrets that he has not been able to develop the chap- ters on culture, education, and moral discipline. — Of his too numerous notes he gives but the following, . . .' 393 . Note 1. A GLANCE At the ENSEMBLE OF THIS BOOK. And especially at the Rejuvenescence of Love, .... 321 Note a S THB AUTHOR JUSTIFIED IN BELIEVING THAT WE CAN STILL LOTXT Official statistics on the decline of marriage, etc. — ^Although Btirope is diseased, it has still reason to hope, — ^The decline of Table of Contents. xvii the Roman empire was preceded by a grievous obscuring and enfeebling of the mind; but now intelligence and invention are on the increase. — Moral progress in the religion of the dead, and the love of nature.since 1800. — The immense majority of French and other Kuropeans who have no knowledge of fashionable vices. — The young man of the world may not hope to attain a high position unless he concentrates his life, and depends upon a home, 330 Note 3. wouan bemstated, aks fboclaimed innocent by scienos. i 1 the Fathers, following the Hebraic tradition, condemn woman, and declare her to be impure. — Chemistry proves thai she is pure. — ^Physiology has shown that she is constantly a wounded person, an invalid. — ^By that title she has always, in law, her extenuating circumstances. — The death punishment not to be inflicted on women. — ^A pregnant woman cannot be arrested except at the risk of committing two murders. — The ancient German laws allowed her a few little pilferings. — ^A wish that every court of assize had the continual assistance of a medi- cal jury. — Justice must become Medicine, and Medicine must become justice and morality, . 334 Note 4. or the soukoes of this book of love, and the suppobt that phtsiology lends to moeaiitt. Uen of letters (Senanqotir, Salzac, and dthers) have aided me but little; but physicians have aSbrded me infinite sup- xviii Table of Contents. pert.— Under harsh, oynioaL and materialistic exteriors, they have nevertheless founded one of those.-grand ideas of the soul, which may be called (when it concerns woman)- the Oi-eed of Mercy. — They have humanized marriage, removed from it the material barbarism which still clung to it— They have demon- strated that what was called impurity is the monthly wound of love, and fruitfulness itself — Tl«y have established, that from the highest to the lowest, from tne least of created things up to the greatest, fecundation is not ephemeral, but often pro- longed far in'.o the future. — The physical principle which con- secrates thn stability of marriage. — ^Love implies a soaring towards Mf mfinite, and a flight into eternity, . 83fl Love INTRODUCTION. Thm title which would fully expi-ess the desigt of this hook, its signification, and its import, ■vrould tie: Moral Enfranchisement, Effected by True Love. This question of Love is lodged, immense and obscure, under the depths of human life. It' even supports its bases and its lowermost foundations. The Family rests upon Love, and Society upon the family. Hence Love goes before everything. As the manners are, so is the community. Liberty would be but a word if we preserved the habits of slaves. Here we seek the Ideal. The ideal which can be realized to-day, not that which we must postpone for a better state of society. It is the reform of Love and of the Family which must precede all others, for it alone can render them possible. One fact is incontestable In the midst of all ou» 8 Introduction. material and mtellectual progress, our Moral Sense has degenerated. Everything advances and develops, one thing alone i-ecedes; it is the Soul. At this truly solemn era, when the net-work of electri- city is spread over all the face of the earth, centralizing universal thought, and permitting the world at last to know itself-^what sort of soul shall we have to give it ? And what if old Europe, from whom it expects every- thing, should contribute but an impoverished soul ? Europe is old, but she is also young, in this sense that she has, to counterbalance her corruption, the rejuvenescence of genius. It is her task to refonn the world by reforming herself. She alone knows, sees, and foresees. Let her but have the wiU to do it, and all is yet safe. We cannot conceal from ourselves that in these latter times the Inclinations have undergone profound changes. The causes of this are numerous. I wiU state two only, mental and physical at the same time, which, going straight to the brain and deadening it, tend to paralyse aU our moral faculties. For a century past, the increasing invasion of spiritu- ous hquors and narcotics has been marching irresistibly, with results varying according to the population — ^hero obscuring the mind, hopelessly depraving it — there, penetrating deeper into the physical economy, reaching even the race itself — but everywhere isolating man, giving him, even in his home, a deplorable preference for solitary enjoyment. No reed to him of society, of love, of family ; in their stead, the dreary pleasm-es of a polygamic life, which, Introduction. q imposing no responsibility upon the man, not even pro- tecting the woman (as the polygamy of the East does), IS therefore more destructive, indefinite, limitless, stimu- lating and enervating continually. Marriages are steadily on the decrease {vide the official reports). And, what is not less serious, the woman is not married until very late. In Paris, where she is precocious, and marriageable at an early age, she does not become a wife before her twenty-fifth year. Hence, eight or ten years of waiting, most frequently of misery, sometimes of disease in consequence. Marriage is not even binding enough to warrant desertion. An inhuman state of things is that where love is but a war upon the woman, profiting by her misery, debasing her ; and, when debased, casting her oflF to starve. Each century is characterized by its great malady, The thirteenth was that of leprosy ; the fourteenth, of the plague ; the sixteenth, of syphilis"; the nineteenth is stricken at the two extremities of nervous life — the Intellect and the affections — as shown in the man by the enervated, vacillating, paralytic brain ; in the woman by the painfully ulcerated matrix. The punishment is this ; this suffering woman will bring forth, from her pain-torn womb, but a sickly infant, who, if he lives, will always seek, to counteract his natural enervation, a fatal relief in alcoholic and narcotic etimulants. Let us accept the painful supposition that uch a man reproduces his kind: he will have from a more diseased woman a still more enervated child. Rather let us have death for the remedy and the radicaJ cure 1* 10 Introduction. It has been fully felt from -the commencement cf the century that this qnestion of love is the essentiax qaes- tion, which is being discussed under the very foundations of society. Where love is established and powerful, everything is strong, solid, and fruitful. ■ The illustrious Utopians who, on so many other sub- jects (on that of education, for example), have thrown much and vivid light, have not been so fortunate on the subject of love. Here they have shown, I will venture to say, but little independence of mind. Their theories, bold in form, are not the less, in substance, subservient to fact, timidly predicated on the manners of the times. They found polygamy, and they bowed down befoi-e it, creating polygamic Utopias for the future. Without any great philosophic research, in order to find the true law for this matter, they might have con- sulted History simply, and Natural History. In History, races of men are powerful in mind and body, exactly in the ratio of their monogamic life. In Natural History, the superior animals tend towards the mai-ried state, and attain it, at least for a time. And it is from this fact, in great measure, that they are superior. It is said that the love of animals is inconstant and variable, that mobility in pleasure is with them a state of nature. I see, however, that, from the time there is any possible stability, or regular means of living, tempo- rary marriages at least are contracted between them ; entered into not merely for the love of generation, but from actual affection. I have remarked this a hundred times, but particularly in Switzerland in a couple of finches. The female having died, the male abandoned Introduction. i \ iimself to despair, and left the young to perish. Evi' lently it was love, and not paternal love alone, which ad bound the male finch to his nest. When she was -■ead, all was over. I\;creasing scarcity of food as the season advances cbligss many of the species to dissolve their temporary marriages. Then the pair must needs separate, to ex tend the radius of their purveying search ; and they can no longer return to the same nest at night. Thus they are divorced by hunger, not by mutual consent. The little industrious habits that an established union always engenders are interrupted, annulled. Bu*; for this they would remain together. It is not pleasure alone which keeps them, so, for the fructifyiag female oommunicates none. It is the true instinct of society, of life in common ; the delight of feeling near you, all d^y, one little soul devoted to yourself, which' leans upon you, calls upon you, feels the want of you, never confounds you (finch or nightingale, as you may be) with anothei of the same species, listens to your song alone, and oftoa replies to it by low and plaintive cries — ^in a whisper, bc to speak (that she may be heard by but one), from hei;-uc>art to yours. In our day the question of love has been profoundly considered. Writers of genius, one in immortal ro- mances, another imder a theoretical form, eloquent, acrimonious, and austere, have forcibly agitated it. For reasons which will be understood, I refrain from exam- ining their books ; our points of discussion will appear plainly enough in my own. I will permit myself to say, however, despite my admiration and sympathetic re- 1 2 Introduction. spect, that on neither side has the gist of the mallei been satisfactorily penetrated. Its two faces, the one physiological, the othei niMal, yet remain veiled. The discussion continues without any one knowing, or deigning to remark, that it bears upon more than one point where the supreme authority, that of facts, has pronounced its verdict, and settled the matter beyond all cavil. The object of love, woman, in her essential mystery long unknown, unrecognised, was revealed by a series of discoveries, 'dating from 1827 to 1247. We now know this sacred being, who, precisely in what the Middle Ages characterized as impurity, was in reality the saint of the saints of nature. The innate fickleness of woman is known ; and not less her constancy, which marks with such fatal dura- bility all union and marriage. How can we speak of love without saying a word of this? Still another essential thing: love is not, as people say, or would have you believe, a crisis, a drama in one act, If it were but this, an accident so transitory would hardly be worth our attention. It would be only one of those ephemeral, superficial maladies, of ■which we strive to rid ourselves at as little cost as possible. But, very fortunately, love (and here 1 mean faithful love, fixed only upon one object) is a succession, often a long one, of very different passions, which feed and re- new our lives. Leavbg those blas&s classes who have need of ti'agedies, of abrupt changes of scene, I perceive that love still continues the same, at times all a lifn long, Introduction. 13 with different degrees of intensity, and exterior varia- tions widch do not alter the substance. Granted, that the flame only burns on condition of its changing, going up or down, intensifying, varying in form and in color. But nature has provided for this. Woman ceaselessly alters her aspects ; one single woman contains a thousand of them. And the imagination of man changes also its points of view. On the ground- work, generally solid and tenacious, of habit, circumstances construct changes which modify and renew the affection. Take, not the exception (the refined, romantic world), but the rule (the majority, the homes of working men, which form nearly the whole) ; you see there that the man, older than the wife by seven, ten years perhaps, and having seen besides much more of life, is much superior at first to his young companion in experience, and loves her somewhat as his daughter. She overtakes him or passes him very soon; maternity, the wisdom of economy, augmenting her importance, she counts for as much as he does, and she is loved like a sister. But when work has worn the man down, the sober and serious wife, the good genius of the house, is loved by him as a mother. She cares for him, provides for him ; he reposes upon her, au.d often allows himself to be like a child to her, feeling that he possesses in her a good nm-se and a visible providence. See to what is reduced, among little folks, that great and terrible question of the superiority of one sex over the other, a question so irritating when it comes to con- cern the upper classes. It is, above all, a question of age. Yoii -will see it solved, the day after the mar- riage, to the man's profit, when the wife is yet a young 14 Introduction. girl — solved later to the advantage of the womaa When, on Saturday raght, the man brings home his week's salary, and she puts aside the necessary portion to feed and clothe the children, she leaves for her hus- 4)aud enough for his little indulgences ; and she forgets no one but herself. If love is but a crisis, we can also define the Loire an inundation. But you must remember that that river, in its course of two hundred leagues, in its various and multiplied offices, as a great thoroughfare, irrigating the earth, refreshing the air, etc., has thousands and thousands of means of influence. It is doing it injustice to view it solely in that violent aspect which you may think most dramatic. Let us leave then its accidental drama, which reaUy is but secondary. Let us rather look upon it in the regular epopee of its great life as a river, in its salutary and prolific charactei-istics, which are none the less poetic. In love, the dramatic moment is interesting, without doubt. But it is that of the fatal violence to which you can be but a passive. looker-on, where you have but very little influence. It is like the torrent which you ob- serve at its narrowest point, foaming and furious. You must take it in the totality and continuity of its course. Higher up it was a peaceful brook, farther down it be- comes a mighty river, but a calm one. Love is a power easily disciplined. It gives, as does all other natural strength, a foothold for the wiU, for the art which, say what you will to the contrary, very easily creates it, and as easily modifies it by its surroundr ings, exterior circumstances, and habits. Introduction. 1 5 How shall the man, older, more experienced and en lightened, initiate the young woman ? How shall the developed woman, arrived at her ape gee of grace and power, retain, retake the heart of the man, help him when he is weary, renew his youth, give him wings to soar above the miseries of life and of labor ? What influence has man over woman, woman over man? This is a science, an art. "We give here the clue; others will go deeper. To sum up : Hitherto Love has been regarded only in its least in- structive phase. One of its forms, ^n inevitable and profound one, that of its relations to Natural History, has an immense in- fluence upon its moral developnlent. This has been neglected. It has likewise a free and voluntary character, where Moral Philosophy acts upon it, and which also has been neglected. This book is a first attempt to fill these two vacuums II. So long as the inevitable and invariable side of love (Vas not turned to the Ught, we did not know piecisely irhere its liberty, its own spontaneous and variable action, commenced. Woman was an enigma. Still we 1 6 Introduction, could prattle about her eternally, give the jwo aid tie fion — nothing more. One alone stepped forward, among these speech, makers, and put an end to the discussion- one -who un- derstands it thoroughly— the sister of Love : Death. These two powers, apparently in opposition, cannot go on without each other. They contend with equal strength. Love does not kiU Death, Death does not bin Love. At the bottom of all this, they understand each other wonderfcdly. Each of them explains the other. Observe, that death was needed (ia order to catch the yet lukewai-m life) — death in its sudden and cruel form, violent death. It is death, after all, which has taught us the most. It was the hangman's victims who revealed to us the mysteries of digestion ; and suicidal women those of physical love and generation. A place, too, had to be found where violent death was conmion, where suicide ever afforded to observation an immense number of women of aU ages, the greatei part of them in their crises of suffering; some at that monthly period when they are exalted by nature ; others', enceintes, hoping to die with their infants; and veritable virgins, poor, bruised flowers, who despaired of ever being loved. I have not the exact figures for Paris. But the place in Paris where they expose the bodies of those who do not die in their beds, La Morgue, receives fifty a year. This makes five hundred in ten years ! An enormous . number, when you consider their natural timidity and their extreme fear of death. In what month are these violent deaths of women Introduction 1 7 most common? In the beautiful montlis, when they feel their desertion most cruelly ; in the hlooming months, when women love most. For it is an essential fact that love, generation, is most sought by man in the hohdays of winter and ui the banquets which foUow them ; by woman in the season of flowers, under the purest influences of reviving nature, of the sunshine, and of spring. Then can they least support their painful isolation, their inconsolable misery, and they prefer to die. The statistics do not show this. They class the greater part of those who die thus, in the exaltation of love, under the head of lunatics. From the commencement of the century. Science has been progressing towards the great revelation. GeofTroy Saint-IElaire and Jerres created embryogeny. Baer (182Y) commenced ovology, and was followed by Messrs. Negrier and Coste. In 1842, a master, Pouchet de Rouen, reduced the whole science to a; formula, and by a book of genius set it up for the future in proportions of daring grandeur. "We have noted little beyond the inferior mammalia ; woman herself very little. The ingenious and learned Cbste and his able assistant Gerbe (an anatomic artist), had the glory and the good fortune to discern aU the truth. For nearly ten years (from the creation of the professor- ship of ovology to the publication of the incomparable atlas which completes these revelations), they read death itself, and hundreds of women disclosed to them the Bupreme mystery of love and- of pain. 1 8 Introduction. What is the total result of this soleiim inquest? What comes of this great and cruel wreck of woman, of this funereal alluvium deposited each' year by isola^ tion, abandonment, betrayal, despair ? What comes of this wreck is a great truth, changing infinitely the ideas that were entertained of woman. That which the Middle Ages insulted and degraded, and called impurity, is precisely her holiest crisis ; .what constitutes her an eminently poetic and religious object. Love had always believed this, and love was right. The stupid Science of the time was wrong. But woman labors under a great fatality. Nature feivors man. She gives woman to him, feeble, loving, depending on the constant need of being loved and pro- tected. She loves in advance him to whom God seems to lead her. To distrust, resist, stop herself in this descent, she must have much more strength of mind than we ever need, and ten times more virtue. What a duty for us? Nature confides her innocent daughter to the magnanimity of man. But there is yet something of greater importance. Facts, coming from another source (w. Jjucas, vol. ii., p. 60), commence to prove that the union of love, whither the man betakes himself so lightly, is for the woman much more profound and definitive than has ever been believed. She gives herself up, entirely and jrevocably. The phenomenon observed in the inferior female animals is found, less regularly indeed, but still is found, in woman. Fecundation transforms her in a lasting manner. The widow frequently bears to hei second husband children which resemble her first. Introduction 19 This is a great and terrible fact. The conclasi dh i? overwhelming for the heart of man. What ! has Nature done so much for him, favored him to this degree? lie, too, who makes the laws, has favored himself, armed himself agains? a poor, weak creature whom suffering has delivered up to him ! With this double advantage how gentle he should be towards the woman, how tender in his protection ! The vital flux and reflux, the profound renewing that she suffers with so much pain, makes her the gentlest, the most modifiable of beings. As soon as you love her, envelop her, isolate her from bad influences. Every folly of woman is bom of the stupidity of man. With -what perfect harmony, with what astonishing regularity, is composed the great movement of life and of ideas ! The details come all confused, it seems, and quite by 'chance. Stand off, and look at the ensemble ; you are more than surprised, transfixed with admiration, by the siugular appropriateness with which pieces quite unlike, and apparently disconnected, knowing not each other, fit together and arrange themselves, to build up the eternal poem. During this period of twenty years, when the physical dependance of the woman was so forcibly demonstrated by Science, her free personality not less strongly burst upon Literature. To that law of nature which subjects her to pain, makes her a suffering creature, she replies " No, I too am a soul." Behold her then revealed, both in her destiny and in her personality. By as much as on the one hand she commands our pity, on the other she compels our adm/;- 20 Introduction. ration and respect. On both sides an mexpected happi ness is opened to ns, that of increased love, an infinite prospect into depths of love. Who will deny this new power with which she haa burst forth ? The great prose-writer of the century is a fV'oman, Madame Sand. Its most impassioned poet is a «roman, Madame Valmore. The greatest success of the age 18 that of a woman's book, Mrs. Stowe's novel— the njospel of liberty for a race, translated into aU tongues. If the first words of the woman seem rebellious, wh; oan mistake the cries of pain which come from that poor mvalid, in the agitation of her awakening ? Care for her, and love her . . . Ah ! but the proudest of her sex would gladly give all the glories of the world for a moment of true love ! The book that woman longs to write in, the only book, is man's heart — to write there in letters of fire, never to be effaced. Literary demonstrations have much exaggerated the changes that have taken place. All this agitation is on the Bur&ce. Woman is what she was. As recent science explains her to us, with love's wound bleeding in her always, softened by suffering, glad to rest upon some one, ^uch she was, such she remains. Wherever she is alone, where the world does not spoil her, she is a good and docile creature, willingly submitting to our habits, which are often very offensive to her, subduing man's rude will, civilizing him and ennobling him. Women and children form an aristocracy of charminw. ness and grace. The bondage of business debases man, and often renders him coarse and avaricious. Woman's bondage is simply that of nature ; it is nothing but hei Introd action. 21 weakness, her suffering ; and these render her touching and poetic. Correggio never tired of painting very young children, at the period when the lacteal life, the physical and helpless life, being passed, the first ray of their littl freedom appeared. It is then revealed, with unspeakable grace, in their pretty motions. The child is pleasing because he feels himself free and much beloved, because he knows instinctively that he can do everything that he pleases, and that he wiU always be loved the more for it. The mother is not less delightful in this first transport : " Ah ! how active he is ! and how strong too ! ... he can beat me already f" These are her exclamations. She is happy ; she adores him in his resistings, in his charming rebejlions. . . . Doea he love his mother the less for that ? She knows too well the contrary. If he sees her looking at all sorry, he throws himself in her arms again. Why was not the man to the woman, at the first outbreak of her individuahty, what the mother is to the child? For a long time she seemed dumb, said nothmg. See, on the Indian stage, the sadness of the lover when he canpot obtain a word from that beautiful mouth. How does he know that he is loved ? and is it a person or a thing that loves him ? "In the Aame of those you love, will you never speak to me ? . . . , Oh, my God ! how shaU I know ?....'' This silence, this eternal ignorance of the consent accorded, and of the thought bidden, is, in reality, a true divorce. It is the cause of that sadness so often described, of that fury of which Lucretia speaks, of that despair even in the midst of pleasure. 2 2 Introduction. At last she has spoken ! . . . . O joy, it is a living 'creature ! From the overwhehning darkness her free- dom is now rescued. . . . She can hate. . . So much the better, for then she can also love. I wished her thus. This first quick, strong onthreak delights me, does not frighten me. Let us be friends, beautiful Clorinda. Heaven keep me from ever crossing sworda with you. I would much prefer being wounded ! . . . But, alas ! you are so already. Stem nature wished you to be always wounded, that we might always have an opportunity to cure yon. To speak frankly, between us men (but let it not coma to the ears of the women), we have made ourselves very ridiculous by getting angry^ and scolding. The duel was all a mock one. They have not used the warlike words which have been uttered in their name. Where they have not obliging female friends to teach them the arts of war, they are peaceable, gentle, and ask for nothing but to be loved. But this is their utmost wish, and for it they spare nothing. A lady (Madame de Gasparin), in a book mystically beautiful, eloquent, tender as it is solemn, declares to us that their happiness is in obeying, and that they desire the man to be the stronger, that they love those who command, and do not dislike the rioor of the command. This lady, who believes that she follows the Apostle, but leaves him far behind in the spring of her young heart, assures us that a passive and patient obedience does not suffice for woman- •'hat she wishes to obey for Introduction. 23 love's sake, actively, obey even in advance of tlie possible desire, the divined thought, and without ever crying enough, until she sees the satisfied nod of the beloved object. , A true and profound revelatipn this. It is much more man's indifference than his tyranny that torments woman, much more her not having occasion to obey enough than performing the simple act of obedience. It is of this she complaiQS. No barriers, no External protection are wanted here. They serve, justly remarks this autnor, only to make mischief between husband and wife, and to render the woman miserable. Nothing remains between him and her. aShe goes to him strong in her weakness, in her defenceless bosom, in her heart that beats for him alone. This is woman's warfare. The most valiant would be conquered. Who now will have the hardihood to dis- cuss whether she is higher or lower than man ? She is both at once. He is to her as the sky is to the earth ; he is above, beneath, and all about her.. We were bonj in her. We live by her. We are encompassed by her. We breathe her into our lungs ; she is the atmosphere, the element of our heart. m. On three occasions in twenty-five years the idea of this book, of the profound social need to which it should respond, presented itself to me in all its gravity. 24 Introducf-ion. The first time, in 1836, before a raging literary flood had swept over us, I desired to write this history. 1 was then in the flower of middle-age. But the necessary treatises were not yet published. I wrote a few venture- some pages on middle-aged women, and there fortu- nately stopped. In 1844, the confidence of youth, and I dare say, the sympathy of every one, surroimded me, in my professor's chair of History asnd Moral Philosophy. I then saw and knew many things. I became acquainted with the public morals. I felt the necessity of a serious book on Love. In 1849, when social tragedies broke the hearts of men and women, tUl the very air was chilled with horror, it seemed as though the blood had all abandoned our veins. In presence of this phenomenon, which immi- nently threatened an extinction of every kind of life, I appealed to what httle of animal warmth still remained to us ; I invoked, to the succor of law, the renovation of mcrals, a purifying of love and of the family. The occasion of 1844 deserves to be remembered. In gathering together my recollections, and looking over my numerous letters of that time, I see that the singular confidence the public manifested in me arose from the feeling that I was a ma# abiding in solitude, a stranger to all classes, removed from the