This sensible precaution proved that she was no ordinary
woman. There, her young ladies did not gaze upon the picture gallery
of the streets, the huge and grotesque figures and the obscene words
drawn by some evil-spirited pencil. They had not perpetually before
their eyes the spectacle of human infirmities exhibited at every
barrier in France, and treacherous book-stalls did not vomit out upon
them in secret the poison of books which taught evil and set passion
on fire. This wise school-mistress, moreover, could only at Ecouen
preserve a young lady for you spotless and pure, if, even there, that
were possible. Perhaps you hope to find no difficulty in preventing
your wife from seeing her school friends? What folly! She will meet
them at the ball, at the theatre, out walking and in the world at
large; and how many services two friends can render each other! But we
will meditate upon this new subject of alarm in its proper place and
order.
Nor is this all; if your mother-in-law sent her daughter to a boarding
school, do you believe that this was out of solicitude for her
daughter? A girl of twelve or fifteen is a terrible Argus; and if your
mother-in-law did not wish to have an Argus in her house I should be
inclined to suspect that your mother-in-law belonged undoubtedly to
the most shady section of our honest women.
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