But the man of sentiment, the
philosopher of the boudoir, while he eats his fine bread, made of
corn, sown and harvested by these creatures, will reject them and
relegate them, as we do, to a place outside the genus Woman. For them,
there are no women excepting those who can inspire love; and there is
no living being but the creature invested with the priesthood of
thought by means of a privileged education, and with whom leisure has
developed the power of imagination; in other words that only is a
human being whose soul dreams, in love, either of intellectual
enjoyments or of physical delights.
We would, however, make the remark that these nine million female
pariahs produce here and there a thousand peasant girls who from
peculiar circumstances are as fair as Cupids; they come to Paris or to
the great cities and end up by attaining the rank of _femmes comme il
faut_; but to set off against these two or three thousand favored
creatures, there are one hundred thousand others who remain servants
or abandon themselves to frightful irregularities. Nevertheless, we
are obliged to count these Pompadours of the village among the
feminine population.
Our first calculation is based upon the statistical discovery that in
France there are eighteen millions of the poor, ten millions of people
in easy circumstances and two millions of the rich.
There exist, therefore, in France only six millions of women in whom
men of sentiment are now interested, have been interested, or will be
interested.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44