The Orientals take their brides without distressing themselves about
the past and lock them up in order to be more certain about the
future; the French put their daughters into a sort of seraglio
defended by their mothers, by prejudice, and by religious ideas, and
give the most complete liberty to their wives, thus showing themselves
much more solicitous about a woman's past than about her future. The
point we are aiming at is to bring about a reversal of our system of
manners. If we did so we should end, perhaps, by giving to faithful
married life all the flavor and the piquancy which women of to-day
find in acts of infidelity.
But this discussion would take us far from our subject, if it led us
to examine, in all its details, the vast improvement in morals which
doubtless will distinguish twentieth century France; for morals are
reformed only very gradually! Is it not necessary, in order to produce
the slightest change, that the most daring dreams of the past century
become the most trite ideas of the present one? We have touched upon
this question merely in a trifling mood, for the purposes of showing
that we are not blind to its importance, and of bequeathing also to
posterity the outline of a work, which they may complete. To speak
more accurately there is a third work to be composed; the first
concerns courtesans, while the second is the physiology of pleasure!
"When there are ten of us, we cross ourselves.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113