decadence, a woman, or rather, many women. A woman was the instigator of the greatest crime ever recorded in history, the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew. A woman, who has dearly paid for it since, was the cause of the Franco-German war. On the other hand, France was saved in the fifteenth century by a sweet peasant girl at a time when King and people had given up all hope of ever again seeing France a free and independent nation – but that was a long time ago.
There is no country where the influence of women over men is so great as France, and the famous phrase 'Cherchez la femme' – 'Seek the woman' – emanated from the lips of the greatest jurisconsult France ever produced, President Dupin, in the reign of King Louis Philippe. And it is a fact that among French prisoners who belong to the better classes, there are ninety-nine out of every hundred who have committed murder, forgery, embezzlement, theft, for the sake of a woman. The English people (and the Americans, too, I believe) say that drunkenness is responsible for the great majority of crimes committed in Great Britain and America. The expensive ways of French women are responsible for the majority of crimes and offences committed by men in modern France, as these expensive ways of women are responsible for their own downfall nine times out of ten.
On the other hand, a man owes all his best qualities to the influence of the first woman he has known, his mother. A man will be what his mother has made him. A man does not learn how to be a gentleman at school, at college, or at the university. There he may improve his manner, but his mind is formed at home much earlier than that.
It is woman, and woman alone, that makes society polite. Men together can talk or chat, but it is only when women join them that they can causer, an equivalent for which the English language does not possess. And why? Simply because Englishmen do not as a rule care for the restraint that results from the presence of women.
Thanks to the tact, the brilliancy, and the high intellectual attainments of American women, one can causer in America, and the vocabulary of the language used in the United States ought to be richer by one word, a good equivalent for this French verb which both 'to talk' and 'to chat' most imperfectly translate; for causer means 'to chat with wit, humour, brilliancy, and great refinement.'
CHAPTER III
MAXIMS FOR THE MAN IN LOVE
Never go down on your knees to declare your love; you will spoil your trousers and feel very uncomfortable. Rather give the lady an opportunity of denying that you were on your knees before her, for the simple reason that she was sitting on them.
Never put your hand near your lady's waistband or round her neck. Place it about the middle of her back; there are no pins there.
If she asks you to fasten her bracelet, never forget to apply a kiss on her arm. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that is what she wants and why she does not secure her bracelet with a little chain.
Never call on your lady-love while you have a cold in your head. If you begin your declaration, you will never be able to resume it after a fit of sneezing. A cold in the head inspires pity neither in the heart of man nor in that of woman, and sneezing is fatal if the lady possesses the slightest particle of humour. Remember that, with a cold in your head, you will have to say to her: 'I lob you, be darling. Oh! I hab such a cold id be dose.' No romantic love, my dear fellow, could survive that.
I knew a man who once eloped with a married woman. They were deeply in love with each other. When they arrived at their destination, they went to the hotel where they had engaged rooms. It was a bitterly cold day, and they had forgotten to give orders for fires. The rooms were dull and chilly. They fell in each other's arms. 'At last, my darling!' he exclaimed. 'At last, my own beloved one!' He could say no more. He was seized with a violent fit of sneezing. The misled lady came at once to her senses. In no time the trunks were sent back to the station, and that same evening she had returned safe and sound to the conjugal roof. The 'saving grace' of humour has done still more for women than for men who owe so much to it.
The woman who has a keen sense of humour is a terrible one to make love to. The romantic one will find charms in all your shortcomings, but the other is inexorable. She is constantly on the look-out for something to laugh at; nothing will escape her. And you know that, if you laugh, love-making is out of the question.
I know a woman who was radically cured of her ardent love for a man because he had, near the tip of his nose, a tiny little wart which turned alternately white and red while he got passionately engaged telling her the sincerity and intensity of his love.
If you are bald, never make love to a woman taller than you. Looked at from below, you are all right.
Never let your lady-love see you without a collar, no, not even the very wife of your bosom. A man's head without a collar is like a bouquet without a holder.
Never let her see you asleep. Maybe you sleep with your mouth open. If you are married, let your wife sleep first. When you are quite sure she is off, let yourself go – and be careful to wake up first in the morning.
Never tell your lady-love that you are very steady in your affections, and that every time that you love a woman it is for ever. If you think she will enjoy the joke, you overrate her sense of humour.
If your wife or sweetheart be in love with you to such a degree that she tells you she could never survive you if you happened to die, reassure her and tell her that there is a way out of the difficulty – her setting out first.
Don't let your wife see you shave. Your idiotic, cowed look, your gaping mouth and grimaces are as many infallible remedies for love.
Never indulge in any little objectionable trick before the woman you love. Great affections should never be trifled with. Madame Bovary, in Gustave Flaubert's famous novel, took a dislike to her husband and went helplessly wrong, because the latter, after eating, used to clean his teeth by promenading his tongue inside his mouth. I sympathize with the poor woman and feel rather inclined to forgive her.
CHAPTER IV
ADVICE TO THE MAN WHO WANTS TO MARRY
When you are dead, once said a cynic, it's for a long time; but when you are married, it's for ever.
Therefore, before entering into the holy estate of matrimony, a man could not be too careful in the choice of his partner.
Now, what should influence him most in that choice? Money? Never – oh, never, unless it be out of philanthropy and on reflecting that, after all, it would be very hard on rich girls to feel that they cannot marry because they have money, and I do think that they want to marry as well as others. Beauty, then? No; beauty passes away. Ugliness? Certainly not; ugliness remains. What, then? An altogether of physical, moral, and intellectual charms which fit in exactly with all the ideals of that man, and, above all, a similarity of tastes.
After all, what is beauty, considered as an incentive to love? A man has in himself a hundred beings to every one of which a different kind of beauty can appeal. If he be an artist, the women of Raphael will inspire him with the purest sensations of love, those of Titian with the loftiest sentiments of admiration and respect. Those of Watteau will make him believe that he could live on candies and choux à la crême. Those of Teniers would reconcile him to the idea of a quiet life over a pipe and a tankard of beer. Some heroic beauty will inspire him with the most chivalrous sentiments; some melancholy one with dreams of a refined poetic life. Some sedate beauty, with her hair dressed à la vierge, will suggest to him a regular humdrum life, mid-day dinners, retiring and rising early, and will inculcate in him an immoderate desire to be the father of a large family. That same man, however, might become a criminal under the influence of some poisonous beauty. Some Bostonian girl educated beyond her intellect might induce that very man to spend the rest of his life studying Browning.
Now, my dear man, if beauty should influence you in the choice of a wife, never decide on a woman before you are absolutely sure that, whatever happens, you will be happy with her as your wife knitting by your side, while, under a veranda covered