A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman affranchised. / An answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other modern innovators

Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been repaired, but spelling has not been standardized. Any missing page numbers are those that are not shown in the original text.

A WOMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF WOMAN;
OR
WOMAN AFFRANCHISED.

AN ANSWER TO MICHELET, PROUDHON, GIRARDIN, LEGOUVÉ,
COMTE, AND OTHER MODERN INNOVATORS.

By MADAME D'HÉRICOURT.

Translated from the last Paris Edition

NEW YORK:
CARLETON, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY.
M DCCC LXIV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
G. W. CARLETON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.

R. CRAIGHEAD,
Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotyper,
Carton Building,
81, 83, and 85 Centre Street.

CONTENTS

[ VI]

INTRODUCTION
TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

The general interest evinced in the theories of Michelet and other philosophers concerning the functions and province of woman, and the lively opposition to these theories manifested in many quarters, have called forth an American translation of the present work. This remarkable book of Madame d'Héricourt on woman is conceded to be the best reply to these philosophers extant. The work, intended by the author as "a refutation of the coarse indecency of Proudhon, and of the perfumed pruriency of Michelet, and the other false friends and would-be champions of woman," has had a remarkable history. Published first at Brussels, it was interdicted in France, and notice was given that all copies found would be seized. Madame d'Héricourt appealed to the censorship to know the reason of this interdiction, and was informed in reply that the reason for such proceedings never was given. Not content with this, she wrote to Napoleon III, enclosing a copy of the work, and called his attention to the fact that a book by a French author could be suppressed in France without any reason being given for it, and without any chance being offered to the author to clear herself of the implied charge of immorality. Immediately upon the reception of the letter, the Emperor withdrew the interdiction.

Madame d'Héricourt is well known in France as an able contributor to various philosophic journals, and also as a member of the medical profession, in which she holds a high and respected position. Her opinions are entitled to great weight, and will be welcomed as throwing much light on the practical question of the sphere of woman, which is becoming one of increasing interest. The better to adapt the book to the American public, it has been slightly abbreviated in portions of local interest, referring chiefly to French legislation. It has been well received in England, as is testified by the following extract from the London Critic, one of the ablest of the English critical journals:

"The work is calculated to do an immense service to French society at the present time—just when the literature of the country is on the verge of decay from the rottenness which is eating to its very core. 'La Femme Affranchie' points out the remedy to the social cancer which has gnawed away the vital principle of domestic life in France, and caused that antagonism between the sexes which foreigners behold with the most profound amazement. Madame d'Héricourt's bold and nervous arguments completely destroy the brutal commonplaces of Proudhon as regards the moral and intellectual capacity of women. She takes him on his own ground, and to his medical propositions returns medical objections of far greater weight and power, being more competent to judge the question, as she has passed examinations as 'Maitresse sage femme' of 'La Clinique,' and received her diploma as medical practitioner many years ago."

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
TO MY READERS.

Readers, male and female, I am about to tell you the end of this book, and the motives which caused me to undertake it, that you may not waste your time in reading it, if its contents are not suited to your intellectual and moral temperament.

My end is to prove that woman has the same rights as man.

To claim, in consequence, her emancipation;

Lastly, to point out to the women who share my views, the principal measures that they must take to obtain justice.

The word emancipation giving room for equivocation, let us in the first place establish its meaning.

To emancipate woman is not to acknowledge her right to use and abuse love; such an emancipation is only the slavery of the passions; the use of the beauty and youth of woman by man; the use of man by woman for his fortune or credit.

To emancipate woman is to acknowledge and declare her free, the equal of man in the social and the moral law, and in labor.

At present, over the whole surface of the globe, woman, in certain respects, is not subjected to the same moral law as man; her chastity is given over almost without restriction to the brutal passions of the other sex, and she often endures alone the consequences of a fault committed by both.

In marriage, woman is a serf.

In public instruction, she is sacrificed.

In labor, she is made inferior.

Civilly, she is a minor.

Politically, she has no existence.

She is the equal of man only when punishment and the payment of taxes are in question.

I claim the rights of woman, because it is time to make the nineteenth century ashamed of its culpable denial of justice to half the human species;

Because the state of inferiority in which we are held corrupts morals, dissolves society, deteriorates and enfeebles the race;

Because the progress of enlightenment, in which woman participates, has transformed her in social power, and because this new power produces evil in default of the good which it is not permitted to do;

Because the time for according reforms has come, since women are protesting against the order which oppresses them; some by disdain of laws and prejudices; others by taking possession of contested positions, and by organizing themselves into societies to claim their share of human rights, as is done in America;

Lastly, because it seems to me useful to reply, no longer with sentimentality, but with vigor, to those men who, terrified by the emancipating movement, call to their aid false science to prove that woman is outside the pale of right; and carry indecorum and the opposite of courage, even to insult, even to the most revolting outrages.

Readers, male and female, several of the adversaries of the cause which I defend, have carried the discussion into the domain of science, and have not shrunk before the nudity of biological laws and anatomical details. I praise them for it; the body being respectable, there is no indecency in speaking of the laws which govern it; but as it would be an inconsistency on my part to believe that blamable in myself which I approve in them, you will not be surprised that I follow them on the ground which they have chosen, persuaded that Science, the chaste daughter of Thought, can no more lose her chastity under the pen of a pure woman than under that of a pure man.

Readers, male and female, I have but one request to make; namely, that you will pardon my simplicity of style. It would have cost me too much pains to write in the approved fashion; it is probable, besides, that I should not have succeeded. My work is one of conscience. If I enlighten some, if I make others reflect; if I awaken in the heart of men the sentiment of justice, in that of women the sentiment of their dignity; if I am clear to all, fully comprehended by all, useful to all, even to my adversaries, it will satisfy me and will console me for displeasing those who love ideas only as they love women: in full dress.

TO MY ADVERSARIES.

Many among you, gentlemen, adversaries of the great and holy cause which I defend, have cited me, evidently without having read me, without even knowing how to write my name. To such as these I have nothing to say, unless that their opinion matters little to me. Others, who have taken the trouble to read my preceding works in the Revue Philosophique and the Ragione, accuse me of not writing like a woman, of being harsh, unsparing to my adversaries, nothing but a reasoning machine, lacking heart.

Gentlemen, I cannot write otherwise than as a woman, since I have the honor to be a woman.

If am I harsh and unsparing to my adversaries, it is because they appear to me to be those of reason and of justice; it is because they, the strong and well armed, attack harshly and unsparingly a sex which they have taken care to render timid and to disarm; it is, in short, because I believe it perfectly lawful to defend weakness against tyranny which has the audacity and insolence to erect itself into right.

If I appear to you in the unattractive aspect of a reasoning machine, is, in the first place, because Nature has made me so, and I see no good reason for modifying her work; secondly, because it is not amiss for a woman that has attained majority to prove to you that her sex, when not fearing your judgment, reasons as well, and, often, better than you.

I have no heart, you say. I am lacking in it, perhaps, towards tyrants, but the conflict that I undertake proves that I am not lacking in it towards their victims; I have therefore a sufficient quantity of it, the more, inasmuch as I neither desire to please you, nor care to be loved by any among you.

Be advised by me, gentlemen; break yourselves of the habit of confounding heart with nerves; cease to create an imaginary type of woman to make it the standard of your judgment of real women; it is thus that you pervert your reason and become, without wishing it, the thing of all others the most hateful and least estimable—tyrants.

TO MY FRIENDS.

Now to you, my friends, known and unknown, a few lines of thanks.

You all comprehend that woman, as a human being, has the right to develop herself, and to manifest, like man, her spontaneity;

That she has the right, like man, to employ her activity; that she has the right, like man, to be respected in her dignity and in the use which she sees fit to make of her free will.

That as half in the social order, a producer, a tax-payer, amenable to the laws, she has the right to count as half in society.

You all comprehend that it is in the enjoyment of these various rights that her emancipation consists; not in the faculty of making use of love outside a moral law based on justice and self respect.

Thanks first to you, Ausonio Franchi, the representative of Critical Philosophy in Italy, a man as eminent for the profundity of your ideas as for the impartiality and elevation of your character; and who so generously and so long lent the columns of your Ragione to my first labors.

Thanks to you, my beloved co-laborers of the Revue Philosophique of Paris, Charles Lemonnier, Massol, Guepin, Brothier, etc., who have not hesitated to bring to light the question of the emancipation of my sex; who have welcomed the works of a woman to your columns with so much impartiality, and have on all occasions expressed for me interest and sympathy.

Thanks to you, in particular, my oldest friend, Charles Fauvety, the indefatigable searcher after truth, whose elegant, refined and limpid style is solely and constantly at the service of progressive ideas and generous aspirations, as your rich library and your counsels are at the service of those who are seeking to enlighten humanity. Why, alas! do you join to so many talents and noble qualities the fault of always remaining in the background to give place to others!

Thanks to you, Charles Renouvier, the most learned representative of Critical Philosophy in France, who join to such profound doctrine, such acute perception and such sureness of judgment; I would add, such modesty and unpretending virtue, did I not know that it displeases you to bring you before the public.

It is from your encouragement and approbation, my friends and former co-laborers, that I have drawn the strength necessary to the work I am undertaking; it is just, therefore, that I should thank you in the presence of all.

It is equally just that I should publicly express my gratitude to the Italian, English, Dutch, American and German journals that have translated many of my articles; and to the men and women of these different countries as well as of France, who have kindly expressed sympathy for me, and encouraged me in the struggle which I have undertaken against the adversaries of the rights of my sex.

To you all, my friends, both Frenchmen and foreigners, I dedicate this work. May it be useful everywhere in the triumph of the liberty of woman, and of the equality of all before the law; this is the sole wish that a Frenchwoman can make who believes in the unity of the human family, as well as in the legitimacy of national autonomies, and who loves all nations, since all are the organs of a single great body,—Humanity.

CHAPTER I.
MICHELET.

Several women have sharply criticised Michelet's "Love."

Why are intelligent women thus dissatisfied with so upright a man as Michelet?

Because to him woman is a perpetual invalid, who should be shut up in a gynæceum in company with a dairy maid, as fit company only for chickens and turkeys.

Now we, women of the west, have the audacity to contend that we are not invalids, and that we have a holy horror of the harem and the gynæceum.

Woman, according to Michelet, is a being of a nature opposite to that of man; a creature weak, always wounded, exceedingly barometrical, and, consequently, unfit for labor.

She is incapable of abstracting, of generalizing, of comprehending conscientious labors. She does not like to occupy herself with business, and she is destitute, in part, of judicial sense. But, in return, she is revealed all gentleness, all love, all grace, all devotion.

Created for man, she is the altar of his heart, his refreshment, his consolation. In her presence he gains new vigor, becomes inspirited, draws the strength necessary to the accomplishment of his high mission as worker, creator, organizer.

He should love her, watch over her, maintain her; be at once her father, her lover, her instructor, her priest, her physician, her nurse, and her waiting-maid.

When, at eighteen, a virgin in reason, heart and body, she is given to this husband, who should be twenty-eight, neither more nor less, he confines her in the country in a charming cottage, at a distance from her parents and friends, with the rustic maid that we just mentioned.

Why this sequestration in the midst of the nineteenth century, do you ask?

Because the husband can have no power over his wife in society, and can have full power over her in solitude. Now, it is necessary that he should have this full power over her, since it belongs to him to form her heart, to give her ideas, to sketch within her the incarnation of himself. For know, readers, that woman is destined to reflect her husband, more and more, until the last shade of difference, namely, that which is maintained by the separation of the sexes, shall be at last effaced by death, and unity in love be thus effected.

At the end of half a score years of housekeeping, the wife is permitted to cross the threshold of the gynæceum, and to enter the world, or the great Battle of Life. Here she will meet more than one danger; but she will escape them all if she keeps the oath she has taken to make her husband her confessor.... It is evident that Michelet respects the rights of the soul. The husband, who at this epoch has become absorbed in his profession, has necessarily degenerated, hence there is danger that the wife may love another; may become enamored, for instance, of her young nephew. In the book, she does not succumb, because she confesses everything to her husband; still it may happen that she succumbs, then repents, and solicits correction from her lord and master. The latter should at first refuse, but, if she insists, rather than drive her to despair, Michelet—who would on no account drive a woman to despair—counsels the husband to administer to his wife the chastisement that mothers infliction inflict on their darlings.

There must be no separation between the husband and wife; when the latter has given herself away, she is no longer her own property. She becomes more and more the incarnation of the man who has espoused her; fecundation transforms her into him, so that the children of the lover or of the second husband resemble the first impregnator. The husband, being ten years older than the wife, dies first; the woman must preserve her widowhood; her rôle henceforth until death is to fructify within her and about her the ideas which her husband has bequeathed, to remain the center of his friendships, to raise up to him posthumous disciples, and thus remain his property until she rejoins him in death.

In case the husband survives, which may happen, the author does not tell us whether he should re-marry. Probably not, since love exists only between two; unless Michelet, who reproves polygamy in this world, admits it as morality in the life to come.

You see, my readers, that in Michelet's book, woman is created for man; without him she would be nothing; he it is who pronounces the fiat lux in her intellect; he it is who makes her in his image, as God made man in his own.

Accepting the Biblical Genesis, we women can appeal from Adam to God; for it was not Adam, but God, who created Eve. Admitting the Genesis of Michelet, there is no pretext, no excuse for disobedience; woman must be subordinate to man and must yield to him, for she belongs to him as the work to the workman, as the vessel to the potter.

The book of Michelet and the two studies of Proudhon on woman, are but two forms of the same thought. The sole difference that exists between these gentlemen is, that the first is as sweet as honey, and the second as bitter as wormwood.

Nevertheless, I prefer the rude assailant to the poet; for insults and blows rouse us to rebel and to clamor for liberty, while compliments lull us to sleep and make us weakly endure our chains.

It would be somewhat cruel to be harsh to Michelet, who piques himself on love and poetry, and, consequently, is thin skinned; we will therefore castigate him only over the shoulders of M. Proudhon, who may be cannonaded with red-hot shot; and we will content ourselves with criticising in his book what is not found in that of Proudhon.

The two chief pillars of the book on Love are,

First, that woman is a wounded, weak, barometrical, constantly diseased being;

Second, that the woman belongs to the man who has fructified and incarnated himself in her; a proposition proved by the resemblance of the children of the wife to the husband, whoever may be the father.

Michelet and his admirers and disciples do not dispute that the only good method of proving the truth of a principle, or the legitimateness of a generalization, is verification by facts; neither do they dispute that to make general rules of exceptions, to create imaginary laws, and to take these pretended laws for the basis of argument, belongs only to the aberrations of the Middle Age, profoundly disdained by men of earnest thought and severe reason. Let us apply these data unsparingly to the two principal affirmations of M. Michelet.

It is a principle in biology that no physiological condition is a morbid condition; consequently, the monthly crisis peculiar to woman is not a disease, but a normal phenomenon, the derangement of which causes disturbance in the general health. Woman, therefore, is not an invalid because her sex is subject to a peculiar law. Can it be said that woman is wounded because she is subjected to a periodical fracture, the cicatrice of which is almost imperceptible? By no means. It would be absurd to call a man perpetually wounded who should take a fancy to scratch the end of his finger every month.

Michelet is too well informed to render it necessary for me to tell him that the normal hemorrhage does not proceed from this wound of the ovary, about which he makes so much ado, but from a congestion of the gestative organ.

Are women ill on the recurrence of the law peculiar to their sex?

Very exceptionally, yes; but in the indolent classes, in which transgressions in diet, the lack of an intelligent physical education, and a thousand causes which I need not point out here, render women valetudinarians.

Generally, no. All our vigorous peasant women, our robust laundresses, who stand the whole time with their feet in water, our workwomen, our tradeswomen, our teachers, our servant-maids, who attend with alacrity to their business and pleasures, experience no uncomfortableness, or at most, very little.

Michelet, therefore, has not only erred in erecting a physiological law into a morbid condition, but he has also sinned against rational method by making general rules of a few exceptions, and by proceeding from this generalization, contradicted by the great majority of facts, to construct a system of subjection.

If it is of the faculty of abstracting and generalizing that Michelet, as he employs it, robs woman, we can only congratulate her on the deprivation.

Not only is woman diseased, says Michelet, in consequence of a biological law, but she is always diseased; she has uterine affections, hereditary tendencies, which may assume a terrible form in her sex, etc.

We would ask Michelet whether he considers his own sex as always diseased because it is corroded by cancer, disfigured by eruptions, tortured as much as ours by hereditary tendencies; for hereditary tendencies torture it as much as ours, and it is decimated and enfeebled far more fearfully by shameful diseases, the fruits of its excesses.

Of what, then, is Michelet thinking, in laying such stress on the diseases of women in the face of the quite as numerous diseases of men?

The wife should never be divorced or re-marry, because she has become the property of the husband. This is proved by the fact that the children of the lover or of the second husband resemble the first husband.

If this is true, there are no children that resemble their mother.

There are no children that resemble the progenitors or collateral relatives of their parents.

Every child resembles the first that knew his mother.

Can you explain, then, why it is that so often he does not resemble him?

Why he resembles a grandfather, an uncle, an aunt, a brother, a sister of one of the parents?

Why, in certain cities in the south of France, the inhabitants have preserved the Greek type, ascribed to the women, instead of that of their barbaric fathers?

Why negresses who conceive from a white, bring into the world a mulatto, oftenest with thick lips, a flat nose, and woolly hair?

Why many children resemble portraits which had attracted the attention of the mother?

Why, in fine, physiologists, impressed by numerous facts, have thought themselves justified in declaring woman the preserver of the type?

In the face of these undeniable facts, I ask you, yourself, what becomes of your theory?

It returns to the domain of chimeras.

Some think that woman possesses a plastic force, which makes her mould her fruit after the model which love, hate, or fear has impressed within her brain; so that the child thus becomes merely a sort of photograph of a cerebral image of the mother.

By the aid of this theory, we might explain the resemblance of the child to the father, to the first husband, to beloved relatives or to friends, either living or dead; but it would be impossible, thereby, to explain how a woman can reproduce in her child the features of a progenitor of her husband or of herself, whose portrait, even, she has never seen; or how, in spite of her wishes, the child resembles no one that she loves, etc. Let us keep a discreet silence; the laws of generation and of resemblance are unknown. If we succeed in discovering them, it will be only by long and patient observation, with the aid of judicious criticism, and an honorable determination to be impartial. Laws are not created, but discovered; ignorance is more healthful for the mind than error; to make general rules of a few facts, without taking into account facts more numerous by thousands which contradict them, is not to form a science, but a system of poetical metaphysics; and these metaphysics, however gracefully draped they may be, are opposed to reason, to science, and to truth.

Michelet will pardon me this short lesson in method. I should not presume to give it to him, were not men repeating, like well-trained parrots, after him and Proudhon, that woman is destitute of high intellectual faculties, that she is unsuited to science, that she has no comprehension of method, and other absurdities of like weight.

Allegations such as these place women in a wholly exceptional position, with respect to courtesy and reserve: they owe no consideration to those who deny them these; their most important business at the present time is to prove to men that they deceive themselves, and that they are deceived; that a woman is fully capable of teaching the chief among them how a law is discovered, how its reality is verified, how, and on what conditions we have a right to believe, and to style ourselves, rational, and rationalists.

Before concluding, let us dwell on a few passages of the book on Love. I am curious to know what woman Michelet addresses when he says:

"Spare me your elaborate discussions on the equality of the sexes. Woman is not only our equal, but in many points our superior. Sooner or later she will know everything. The question to decide here is, whether she should know all in her first season of love.

Oh, how much she would lose by it! Youth, freshness, poetry—does she wish, at the first blow, to abandon all these? Is she in such haste to grow old?"

Pardon me, sir; you have already decreed that there are no longer any old women; nothing, therefore, can make woman grow old.

"There is knowledge of all kinds," you say; "likewise, at all ages, the knowledge of woman should be different from that of man. It is less science that she needs, than the essence of science, and its living elixir."

What is this essence, and this living elixir of science? Poetry aside, can you, in exact and definite terms, explain to me what they mean?

Can you prove to me, a woman, that I desire to possess knowledge differently from you?

Take care! disciple of liberty, you have not the right to think and to wish in my place. I have, like you, an intellect and a free will, to which you are bound, by your principles, to pay sovereign respect. Now I forbid you to speak for any woman; I forbid you in the name of what you call the rights of the soul.

"You by no means deny," you say, "that, strictly speaking, a young woman can read everything, and inform herself of everything; can pass through all the ordeals to which the mind of man is subjected, and still remain pure. You only maintain," you add, "that her soul, withered by reading, palled by novels, living habitually on the stimulus of play-houses, on the aqua-fortis of criminal courts, will become, not corrupted, perhaps, but vulgar, common, trivial, like the curb-stone in the street. This curb-stone is a good stone; you have only to break it to see that it is white within. This does not hinder it from being sadly soiled outside, in every respect as dirty as the street gutter from which it has been splashed.

"Is this, madam, the ideal to which you lay claim for her who should remain the temple of man, the altar of his heart, whence he daily rekindles the flame of pure love?"

A truce to imagery and oratorical outbursts; none of us demand for woman any degradation whatever. There would be no need for us to demand what you censure, since it is thoroughly authorized and practised. I by no means wish to accuse you of bad faith, of want of reflection, and of too much moral tolerance; yet let us strip off your poetic mantle, and translate your thought into prose; the drapery will no longer make us forget the idea.

When instruction has been demanded for the people, has any one ever taken it into his head to fancy that the point in question was to make them read novels, to swell the attendance on criminal courts, and to multiply theatres?

No, you will say.

What authorizes you, then, to believe that those who demand a solid education for woman, are seeking that of of which you, on your part, do not dream for the people?

On the other hand, do you cultivate the intellect of man by novels, theatres, and spectacles of criminal courts? Is it in these things that his knowledge consists? No, you will say. What is there, then, in common between that which you censure, and the knowledge that we desire for woman; and why attribute to us absurd ideas, that you may have the pleasure of wrangling with phantoms?

All your fine ladies are nurtured on novels, plays, and judicial excitements; yet they are neither vulgar, nor trivial, nor comparable to curb-stones sullied by the mud of the streets; what you tell them, therefore, is no more true than kind.

But if you pay them doubtful compliments, which they do not deserve, you absolve them too easily, in turn. Listen to our principles, that you may not run the risk of appearing unjust with respect to us.

Corruption in our eyes, is not merely the want of chastity, or the shameful suit of gallantry, but all habitual improper sentiment, all weakening of the moral sense, and we absolutely condemn everything which has power to lessen the sensibility of the soul, and to turn it aside from the practice of justice, of virtue, and of self-respect.

In consequence, we profess that the spectacles of criminal courts habituate the heart to insensibility, and should be avoided as much as executions.

We profess that the modern drama is generally evil, because it excites interest for adulterers, robbers, seducers and prostitutes; that the intellect is subjected in theatres to an unhealthy and enervating atmosphere.

We profess, lastly, that novels should be read with great moderation, because, in general, when they do not corrupt the morals, they pervert the judgment and waste precious time.

Though we love and esteem Art, we are indignant at the bad use which is made of it, and we have little esteem for those who avail themselves of it to lead the heart astray, and to pervert the moral sense.

We say to woman: Educate yourselves, be worthy and chaste; life is earnest, employ it earnestly.

You see that woman in the image of the stained curb-stone, is by no means the ideal of which we dream.

Can you, a man of heart, can you treat women as wretched and corrupt because they are willing no longer to be slaves?

And besides, do you think that liberty, which in man engenders individuality and virtue, would produce in woman moral degradation?

Ah! leave these calumnies to those who have no heart; they ill befit you, who may deceive yourself through the lofty poetry of your soul, but who can wish for evil only because you believe it to be good.

The women who ask to be free, great, mistaken poet, are those who are conscious of their dignity, of the true rôle of their sex in humanity; those who desire that the women who follow them in the career of labor should no longer be obliged to live by man, because to live by him is at least to prostitute their dignity, and almost always, their whole person. They wish that woman should be the equal of man, in order to love him holily, to devote herself without calculation, to cease to deceive him or to rule him by artifice, and to become to him a useful auxiliary, instead of a servant or a toy. They know our influence over you; slaves, we can only debase you; at present, we render you cowardly, selfish, and dishonest; we send you out every morning, like vultures, upon society, to provide for our foolish expenses or to endow our children; we, women of emancipation, are unwilling that our sex should longer play this odious rôle, and be, through its slavery, an instrument of demoralization and of social degradation,—and this you impute to us as a crime!

Ah! I do not believe it; you yourself will say that I ought not to believe it.

Looking from a deplorably narrow stand point, you fancied that you saw all woman-kind in a few valetudinarians, your kind heart was moved for them, and you sought to protect them. Had you looked far and high, you would have seen the workers of thought and muscle; you would have comprehended that inequality is to them a source of corruption and suffering.

Then, in your lofty and glowing style, you would have written, not this book of Love which repels all intelligent and reflective women, but a great and beautiful work to demand the right of half the human race.

The misfortune, the irreparable misfortune, is that instead of climbing to the mountain top to look at every moving thing under the vast horizon, you have shut yourself up in a narrow valley, where, seeing nothing but pale violets, you have concluded that every flower must be also a pale violet; whilst Nature has created a thousand other species, on the contrary, strong and vigorous, with a right, like you, to earth, air, water and sunshine.

Whatever may be your love, your kindness and your good intentions towards woman, your book would be immensely dangerous to the cause of her liberty, if men were in a mood to relish your ethics: but they will remain as they are; and the dignity of woman, kept waking by their brutality, their despotism, their desertion, their foul morals, will not be lulled to sleep under the fresh, verdant, alluring and treacherously perfumed foliage of this manchineel tree, called the book of Love.

In Michelet's later work, "Woman," by the side of many beautiful pages full of heart and poetry are found things that we regret to point out, for the sake of the author.

M. Michelet has evidently amended, as we shall press on him; but as a spice of vengeance, he pretends that their language has been dictated by directors, philosophers and others. We know some of these ladies personally, and can assure him that they have had no director of any kind—quite the contrary.

Is it also in consequence of rancor that the author pretends that woman loves man, not for his real worth, but because he pleases her, and that she makes God in her own image, "a God of partiality and caprice, who saves those who please him?" "In feminine theology," adds Michelet, "God would say: I love thee because thou art a sinner, because thou hast no merit; I have no reason to love thee, but it is sweet to me to forgive."

Very well, your sex loves woman for her real worth; we never hear a man, enamored of some unworthy creature, say: "What matters it, I love her!" Your love is always wise, and given reasonably; none but deserving women can please you. I ask why so many honest women are abandoned and unhappy, while so many that are impure and vicious, yet sought and adored, are in possession of the art of charming, of ruining and of perverting men?

Michelet deplores the state of divorce which is established between the sexes; we deplore it likewise; but our complaints do not remedy it. Men shun marriage from motives that do them no credit: they have at their pleasure the poor girls whom want places at their mercy; they shun marriage because they do not wish a real, that is, an autonomous wife at their side; for themselves, they wish liberty, for their wife, slavery.

On their side, women tend to enfranchisement, which is well for them as it is for men: they should not suffer themselves to be turned aside from their pursuit; on the other hand, as men are attracted by a costly toilette, and neglect plainly dressed women, if the latter, in the wish to please and retain them, imitate public women, whose is the fault? Is it ours, who desire to please you and to be loved by you, or yours, who can only be attracted by dress? If you loved us for our real worth, and not because our dresses and jewels please your eye, we would not ruin you.

Let us point out in a few lines the contradictions and differences that are found between Michelet's first and second works.

In both, woman is the flame of love and of the fireside religion, harmony, poetry, the guardian of the domestic hearth, a housewife whose cares are ennobled by love: civilization is due to her grace, she should be the representative of grace if not of beauty.

In both books, the household must be isolated; the wife must have no intimate friendship; mother, brothers and sisters prevent her from becoming absorbed as she ought to be in her husband. What we think of this absorption is already known; we will only say here that if the friends and relatives of the wife should be expelled, those of the husband should be none the less so; the mother and friends of the husband have more power to injure the wife than those of the wife to injure the husband; numerous sad facts prove this.

In "Love," woman is a receptive power, incapable of comprehending conscientious works; she must receive everything from her husband in the intellectual and moral point of view.

In "Woman," she is half of the couple, in the same ratio as man is capable of the most lofty speculations, and thoroughly understands administration. She gives the child the education that before all else will influence the rest of his life. "So long as woman is not the partner of labor and of action," says the author, "we are serfs, we can do nothing—she may even be the equal of man in medical science; she is a school, she is sole educatress, etc."

Very well, thus far; and doubtless Michelet would have been consistent, had he not got into his head a masculine and a feminine ideal which spoils everything; he reasoned to himself: "Man is a creator, woman a harmony whose end and destination is love;" and, consequently, he marks out for the latter a plan of education different from that by which man should be developed; the natural sciences are suited to woman, history should only be taught her to form in her a firm moral and religious faith. As love is her vocation, to each season of the life of woman should correspond an object of love; flowers, the doll, poor children, next the lover, then the husband and children, then the care of young orphans, prisoners, etc.

In "Love," the wife alone seems bound to confess to the husband. In "Woman," the obligation is mutual.

The widow, in "Love," should not marry again, in "Woman," she may espouse a friend of the husband, or still better, the one whom he may choose on his deathbed; if she is too old, she may watch over a young man; but she will do better to protect young girls, to make peace in families, to facilitate marriages, to superintend prisons, etc.

We will carry the analysis no further; our objections to the author's doctrine will be found in the article on Proudhon, and in the sequel of the work.

CHAPTER II.
PROUDHON.

The tenth and eleventh studies of the last work of M. Proudhon, "Justice in the Revolution and in the Church," comprise the author's whole doctrine concerning Woman, Love, and Marriage.

Before analyzing it and criticising its chief points, I must acquaint my readers with the polemical commencement which appears to have given rise to the publication of the strange doctrines of our great critic. In the Revue Philosophique of December, 1856, the following article by me was published under the title, Proudhon and the Woman Question:—

"Women have a weakness for soldiers, it is said. It is true, but they should not be reproached for it; they love even the show of courage, which is a glorious and holy thing. I am a woman, Proudhon is a great soldier of thought. I cannot therefore prevent myself from regarding him with esteem and sympathy; sentiments to which he will owe the moderation of my attack on his opinions concerning the rôle of woman in humanity. In his first "Memoir on Property," note on page 265, edition of 1841, we read the following paradox in the style of the Koran:

"Between man and woman may exist love, passion, the bond of habit, whatever you like; there is not true society. Man and woman are not companions. The difference of sex gives rise between them to a separation of the same nature as that which the difference of races places between animals. Thus, far from applauding what is now called the emancipation of woman, I should be much more inclined, were it necessary to go to this extremity, to put woman in seclusion."

In the third "Memoir on Property," we read:

"This signifies that woman, by nature and by destination, is neither associate, nor citizen, nor public functionary."

I open the "Creation of Order in Humanity," and read there:

"It is in treating of education that we must determine the part of woman in society. Woman, until she becomes a wife, is apprentice, at most under-superintendent, in the work-shop, as in the family, she remains a minor, and does not form a part of the commonwealth. Woman is not, as is commonly affirmed, the half nor the equal of man, but the living and sympathetic complement that is lacking to make him an individual."

In the "Economical Contradictions," we read:

"For my part, the more I reflect on the destiny of woman outside of the family and the household, the less I can account for it: courtesan or housewife, (housewife, I say, not servant,) I see no medium."

I had always laughed at these paradoxes; they had no more doctrinal value in my eyes than the thousand other freaks so common to this celebrated critic. A short time since, an obscure journal pretended that Proudhon, in private conversations, had drawn up a formula of an entire system based on masculine omnipotence, and published this system in its columns. One of two things is certain, said I to myself; either the journalist speaks falsely, or he tells the truth; if he speaks falsely, his evident aim is to destroy Proudhon in the confidence of the friends of progress, and to make him lose his lawful share of influence, in which case, he must be warned of it; if he tells the truth, Proudhon must still be warned of the fact, since it is impossible that, being the father of several daughters, paternal feeling should not have set him on the road to reason. At all events, I must know about it. I wrote to Proudhon, who, the next day, returned me an answer which I transcribe verbatim:

"MADAM:

"I know nothing of the article published by M. Charles Robin in the Telegraphe of yesterday. In order to inform myself with regard to this paraphrase, as you entitle the article of M. Robin, I examined my first "Memoir on Property," page 265, Garnier edition, (I have no other,) and found no note there. I examined the same page in my other pamphlet, and discovered no note anywhere. It is therefore impossible for me to reply to your first question.

"I do not exactly know what you call my opinions on woman, marriage and the family; for I believe I have given no one a right to speak of my opinions on these subjects, any more than on that of property.

"I have written economical and social criticisms; in making these criticisms (I take the word in its highest signification), I may have indeed expressed judgments to a greater or less degree relative, concerning a truth. I have no where that I know of, framed a dogma, a theory, a collection of principles; in a word, a system. All that I can tell you is, in the first place, as far as concerns myself, that my opinions have been formed progressively and in an unvarying direction; that, at the time at which I write, I have not deviated from this direction; and that, with this reserve, my existing opinions accord perfectly with what they were seventeen years ago when I published my first memoirs.

"In the second place, with regard to you, Madam, who, in interrogating me do not leave me in ignorance of your sentiments, I will tell you with all the frankness which your letter exacts, and which you expect from a compatriot, that I do not regard the question of marriage, of woman, and of the family in the same light as yourself, or any of the innovating authors whose ideas have come to my knowledge; that I do not admit, for instance, that woman has the right at the present time to separate her cause from that of man, and to demand for herself special legislation, as though her chief tyrant and enemy were man; that further, I do not admit that, whatever reparation may be due to woman, of joint thirds with her husband (or father) and her children, the most rigorous justice can ever make her the EQUAL of man; that neither do I admit that this inferiority of the female sex constitutes for it either servitude, or humiliation, or a diminution of dignity, liberty, or happiness. I maintain that the contrary is true.

"I consider, therefore, the sort of crusade that is being carried on at this time by a few estimable ladies in both hemispheres in behalf of the prerogatives of their sex, as a symptom of the general renovation that is being wrought; but nevertheless, as an exaggerated symptom, an infatuation that proceeds precisely from the infirmity of the sex and its incapacity to understand and to govern itself.

"I have read, Madam, a few of your articles. I find that your wit, capacity and knowledge place you certainly above an infinity of males who have nothing of their sex but the proletary faculty. In this respect, were it necessary to decide on your thesis by comparisons of this kind, you would doubtless gain the cause.

"But you have too much good sense not to comprehend that the question here is by no means to compare individual with individual, but the whole feminine sex in its aggregate with the whole masculine sex, in order to know whether these two halves, the complements of each other, are or are not equals in the human androgynus.

"In accordance with this principle, I do not believe that your system, which is, I think, that of equality or equivalence, can be sustained, and I regard it as a weakness of our epoch.

"You have interrogated me, Madam, with Franche-Comtois abruptness. I wish you to take my words in good part, and, since I doubtless do not agree at all with you, not to see in me an enemy of woman, a detractor of your sex, worthy of the animadversions of maidens, wives and mothers. The rules of fair discussion oblige you to admit at least that you may be deceived, that I may be right, that in such case it is I who am truly the defender and friend of woman; I ask nothing more.

"You and your companions have raised a very great question, which I think that you have hitherto treated quite superficially. But the indifferent manner in which this subject has been treated should not be considered as conclusive reason for not receiving it; on the contrary, I regard it as another reason for the advocates of the equality of the two sexes to make greater efforts. In this respect, Madam, I doubt not that you will signalize yourself anew, and await with impatience the volume that you announce, which I promise to read with all the attention of which I am capable."

On reading this letter, I transcribed the note which M. Proudhon had not succeeded in finding, and sent it to him, with the article of M. Charles Robin. As he did not reply, his silence authorizes me to believe the journalist.

Ah! you persist in maintaining that woman is inferior, minor! you believe that women will bow devoutly before the high decree of your autocracy! No, no; it will not, it cannot be so. To battle, M. Proudhon! But let us first dispose of the question of my personality.

You consider me as an exception, by telling me that, if it were necessary to decide on my thesis by comparison between a host of men and myself, the decision would be, doubtless, in favor of my opinions. Mark my reply:

"Every true law is absolute. The ignorance or folly of grammarians, moralists, jurisconsults, and other philosophers, alone invented the proverb: There is no rule without an exception. The mania of imposing laws on Nature, instead of studying Nature's own laws, afterwards confirmed this aphorism of ignorance." Who said this? You, in the "Creation of Order in Humanity." Why is your letter in contradiction with this doctrine?

Have you changed your opinion? Then I entreat you to tell me whether men of worth are not quite as exceptional in their sex, as women of merit in theirs. You have said: "Whatever may be the differences existing between men, they are equal, because they are human beings." Under penalty of inconsistency, you must add: Whatever may be the differences existing between the sexes, they are equal, because they form a part of the human species—unless you prove that women are not a part of humanity. Individual worth, not being the basis of right between men, cannot become so between the sexes. Your compliment is, therefore, a contradiction.

I add, lastly, that I feel myself linked with my sex by too close a solidarity ever to be content to see myself abstracted from it by an illogical process. I am a woman—I glory in it; I rejoice if any value is set upon me, not for myself, indeed, but because this contributes to modify the opinion of men with respect to my sex. A woman who is happy in hearing it said: "You are a man," is, in my eyes, a simpleton, an unworthy creature, avowing the superiority of the masculine sex; and the men who think that they compliment her in this manner, are vainglorious and impertinent boasters. If I acquire any desert, I thus pay honor to women, I reveal their aptitudes, I do not pass into the other sex any more than Proudhon abandons his own, because he is elevated by his intellect above the level of foolish and ignorant men; and if the ignorance of the mass of men prejudges nothing against their right, no more does the ignorance of the mass of women prejudge anything against theirs.

You affirm that man and woman do not form true society.

Tell us, then, what is marriage, what is society.

You affirm that the difference of sex places between man and woman a separation of the same nature as that which the difference of races places between animals. Then prove:

That the race is not essentially formed of two sexes;

That man and woman can be reproduced separately;

That their common product is a mixed breed, or a mule;

That their characteristics are dissimilar, apart from sexuality.

And if you come off with honor from this great feat of strength, you will still have to prove:

That to difference of race corresponds difference of right;

That the black, the yellow, the copper-colored persons belonging to races inferior to the Caucasian cannot truly associate with the latter; that they are minors.

Come, sir, study anthropology, physiology, and phrenology, and employ your serial dialectics to prove all this to us.

You are inclined to seclude woman, instead of emancipating her?

Prove to men that they have the right to do so; to women, that it is their duty to suffer themselves to be placed under lock and key. I declare, for my part, that I would not submit to it. Does Proudhon remember how he threatens the priest who shall lay his hand on his children? Well, the majority of women would not confine themselves to threats against those who might have the Mussulmanic inclination of Proudhon.

You affirm that by nature, and by destination, woman is neither associate, nor citizen, nor functionary. Tell us, in the first place, what nature it is necessary to have to be all these.

Reveal to us the nature of woman, since you claim to know it better than she does herself.

Reveal to us her destination, which apparently is not that which we see, nor which she believes to be such.

You affirm that woman, until her marriage, is nothing more than apprentice, at most, under-superintendent in the social workshop; that she is minor in the family, and does not form a part of the commonwealth.

Prove, then, that she does not execute in the social workshop and in the family works equivalent, or equal, to those of man.

Prove that she is less useful than man.

Prove that the qualities that give to man the right of citizenship, do not exist in woman.

I shall be severe with you on this head. To subordinate woman in a social order in which she must work in order to live is to desire prostitution; for disdain of the producer extends to the value of the product; and when such a doctrine is contrary to science, good sense, and progress, to sustain it is cruelty, is moral monstrosity. The woman who cannot live by working, can only do so by prostituting herself; the equal of man or a courtesan, such is the alternative. He is blind who does not see it.

You see no other fate for woman than to be courtesan or housewife. Open your eyes wider, and dream less, and tell me whether all those useful and courageous women are only housewives or courtesans, who support themselves honorably by arts, literature, instruction;

Who found numerous and prosperous manufactures;

Who superintend commercial establishments;

Who are such good managers, that many among them conceal or repair the faults resulting from the carelessness or dissipation of their husbands.

Prove to us, therefore, that all this is wrong;

Prove to us that it is not the result of human progress;

Prove to us that labor, the stamp of the human species—that labor, which you consider as the great emancipator—that labor, which makes men equal and free, has not virtue to make women equal and free. If you prove this to us, we shall have to register one contradiction more.

You do not admit that woman should have the right of claiming for herself special legislation, as though man were her chief enemy and tyrant.

You, sir, are the one that legislates specially for woman; she herself desires nothing but the common law.

Yes; until now, man, in subordinating woman, has been her tyrant and enemy. I am of your opinion when, in your first "Memoir on Property," you say that, so long as the strong and the weak are not equals, they are strangers, they cannot form an alliance, they are enemies. Yes, thrice yes, so long as man and woman are not equals, woman is in the right in considering man as her tyrant and enemy.

"The most rigorous justice cannot make woman the EQUAL of man." And it is to a woman whom you set in your opinion above a host of men, that you affirm such a thing! What a contradiction!

"It is an infatuation for women to demand their right!" An infatuation like that of slaves, pretending that they were created freemen; of the citizens of '89, proving that men are equal before the law. Do you know who were, who are the infatuated? The masters, the nobles, the whites, the men who have denied, who do deny, and who will deny, that slaves, citizens, blacks, and women, are born for liberty and equality.

"The sex to which I belong is incapable of understanding and governing itself," say you!

Prove that it is destitute of intellect;

Prove that great empresses and great queens have not governed as well as great emperors and great kings;

Prove against all the facts patent that women are not in general good observers and good managers;

Then prove that all men understand themselves perfectly and govern themselves admirably, and that progress moves as if on wheels.

"Woman is neither the half nor the equal of man; she is the complement that finally makes him an individual; the two sexes form the human androgynus." Come; seriously, what means this jingle of empty words? They are metaphors, unworthy to figure in scientific language, when our own and the other higher zoölogical species are in question. The lioness, the she-wolf and the tigress are no more the halves or the complement of their species than woman is the complement of man. Or Nature has established two exteriorities, two wills, she affirms two unities, two entireties not one, or two halves; the arithmetic of Nature cannot be destroyed by the freaks of the imagination.

Is equality before the law based upon individual qualities? Proudhon replies in the "Creation of Order in Humanity":

"Neither birth, nor figure, nor faculties, nor fortune, nor rank, nor profession, nor talent, nor anything that distinguishes individuals establishes between them a difference of species; all being men, and the law regulating only human relations, it is the same for all; so that to establish exceptions, it would be necessary to prove that the individuals excepted are above or beneath the human species."

Prove to us that women are above or beneath the human species, that they do not form a part of it, or, under penalty of contradiction, submit to the consequences of your doctrine.

You say in the "Social Revolution;"

"Neither conscience, nor reason, nor liberty, nor labor, pure forces, primary and creative faculties, can be made mechanical without being destroyed. Their reason of existence is in themselves; in their works they should find their reason of action. In this consists the human person, a sacred person, etc."

Prove that women have neither conscience, nor reason, nor moral liberty, and that they do not labor. If it is demonstrated that they possess the primary and creative faculties, respect their human person, for it is sacred.

In the "Creation of Order in Humanity," you say:

"Specifically, labor satisfies the desire of our personality, which tends invincibly to make a difference between itself and others, to render itself independent, to conquer its liberty and its character."

Prove then that women have no special work, and, if facts contradict you, acknowledge that, it inevitably tends to independence, to liberty.

Do you deny that they are your equals because they are less intelligent as a whole than men? In the first place, I contest it; but I need not do so, you yourself resolve this difficulty in the "Creation of Order in Humanity:"

"The inequality of capacities, when not caused by constitutional vices, mutilation or want, results from general ignorance, insufficient method, lack or falsity of education, and divergence of intuition through lack of sequence, whence arises dispersion and confusion of ideas. Now, all these facts productive of inequality are essentially abnormal, therefore the inequality of capacities is abnormal."

Unless you prove that women are mutilated by Nature, I do not exactly see how you can escape the consequences of your syllogism: not only has feminine inferiority the same sources as masculine ignorance, but public education is refused to women, the great professional schools are closed to them, those who through their intellect equal the most intelligent among you have had twenty times as many difficulties and prejudices to overcome.

You wish to subordinate women because in general they have less muscular force than you; but at this rate the weak men ought not to be the equals of the strong, and you combat this consequence yourself in your first "Memoir on Property," where you say:

"Social equilibrium is the equalization of the strong and the weak."

If I have treated you with consideration, it is because you are an intelligent and progressive man, and because it is impossible that you should remain under the influence of the doctors of the Middle Age on one question, while you are in advance of the majority of your cotemporaries on so many others. You will cease to sustain an illogical series that is without foundation, remembering, as you have said so well in the "Creation of Order in Humanity:"

"That the greater part of philosophical aberrations and chimeras have arisen from attributing to logical series a reality that they do not possess, and endeavoring to explain the nature of man by abstractions."

You will acknowledge that all the higher animal species are composed of two sexes;

That in none is the female the inferior of the male, except sometimes through force, which cannot be the basis of human right;

You will renounce the androgynus, which is only a dream.

Woman, a distinct individual, endowed with consciousness, intellect, will and activity like man, will be no longer separated from him before the laws.

You will say of all, both men and women, as in your first "Memoir on Property:"

"Liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what impenetrability is to matter, a condition sine qua non of existence. Equality is an absolute right, because without equality, there is no society."

And you will thus show the second degree of sociability, which you yourself define, "the recognition in another of a personality equal to our own."

I appeal therefore from Proudhon drunk with theology to Proudhon sobered by facts and science, moved by the sorrows and disorders resulting from his own systems.

I hope I shall not encounter his Herculean club raised against the holy banner of truth and right; against woman,—that being physically so weak, morally so strong, who, bleeding, and steeped in gall beneath her crown of roses, is just on the point of reaching the top of the rough mountain where progress will shortly give her her lawful place by the side of man. But if my hopes are deceitful, mark me well, M. Proudhon, you will find me standing firmly in the breach, and, whatever may be your strength, I vow that you shall not overthrow me. I will courageously defend the right and dignity of your daughters against the despotism and logical error of their father, and the victory will remain mine, for, definitively, it always belongs to truth."

Proudhon replied by the following letter in the Revue Philosophique:

"TO MADAME d'HÉRICOURT.

"Well, Madam, what did I tell you in my last letter?

"I consider the sort of crusade that is being carried on at this time by some estimable ladies in both hemispheres in behalf of their sex, as a symptom of the general revolution that is being wrought; but nevertheless as an exaggerated symptom, an infatuation that proceeds precisely from the inferiority of the sex and its incapacity to understand and to govern itself.

"I begin by withdrawing the word infatuation, which may have wounded you, but which was not, as you know, intended for publicity.

"This point adjusted, I will tell you, Madam, with all the respect that I owe you as a woman, that I did not expect to see you confirm my judgment so speedily by your petulant appeal.

"I was at first at a loss to know whence came the discontent that impelled the bravest, the most distinguished among you, to an assault on paternal and marital supremacy. I said to myself, not without disquietude, What is the matter? What is it that troubles them? With what do they reproach us? To which of our faculties, our virtues, our prerogatives; or else of our failings, our perfidies, our calamities, do they aspire? Is this the cry of their outraged nature, or an aberration of their understanding?

"Your attack, joined to the studies which I immediately commenced on the subject, came at last to solve the question.

"No, Madam, you know nothing of your sex; you do not know the first word of the question that you and your honorable confederates are agitating with so much noise and so little success. And, if you do not comprehend this question; if, in your eight pages of reply to my letter, there are forty paralogisms, it results precisely, as I have told you, from your sexual infirmity. I mean by this word, the exactness of which is not, perhaps, irreproachable, the quality of your understanding, which permits you to seize the relation of things only as far as we, men, place your finger upon them. You have in the brain, as in the body, a certain organ incapable by itself of overcoming its native inertia, and which the masculine spirit alone is capable of setting in motion; and even this does not always succeed. Such, Madam, is the result of my direct and positive observations; I make them over to your obstetrical sagacity, and leave you to calculate therefrom the incalculable consequences to your thesis.

"I will willingly enter into an elaborate discussion with you, Madam, on this obscure subject, in the Revue Philosophique. But—as you will comprehend as well as I—the broader the question, the more it affects our most sacred, social, and domestic interests, the more important is it that we should approach it with seriousness and prudence.

"The following course, therefore, appears to me indispensable: In the first place, you have promised us a book, and I await it. I need this work to complete my documents and to finish my demonstration. Since I had the honor of receiving and replying to your letter, I have made earnest and interesting studies on woman, which I ask only to rectify if they are erroneous; as I also desire to set a seal on them if, as I have every reason to presume, your publication brings me but one confirmation more.

"I have verified by facts and documents the truth of all the assertions which you call on me to retract, namely:

"That the difference of sex raises up between man and woman a separation ANALOGOUS—I did not say equal—to that which the difference of races and species establishes between animals;

"That by reason of this separation or difference, man and woman are not associates; I did not say that they could not be anything else;

"That, consequently, woman can only be a citizen in so far as she is the wife of a citizen; as we say Madame la Presidente to the wife of a President: which does not imply that no other rôle exists for her.

"In two words, I am in a position to establish, by observation and reasoning, the facts, that woman, being weaker than man with respect to muscular force, as you yourself acknowledge, is not less inferior to him with respect to INDUSTRIAL, ARTISTIC, PHILOSOPHICAL and MORAL POWER; so that if the condition of woman in society be regulated, as you demand for her, by the same justice as the condition of man, it is all over with her, she is a slave.

"To which I add, immediately, that this system is precisely what I reject: the principle of pure, rigorous right, of that terrible right which the Roman compared to an unsheathed sword, jus strictum, and which rules individuals of the same sex among themselves, being different from that which governs the relations between individuals of different sexes.

"What is this principle, differing from justice, and which, notwithstanding, would not exist without justice; which all men feel in the depth of their souls, and of which you women alone have no idea? Is it love? nothing more? I leave it to you to divine. And if your penetration succeeds in clearing up this mystery, I consent, Madam, to sign you a certificate of genius; Et eris mihi magnus Apollo. But then you will have given me the cause.

"Such, Madam, in a few words, are the conclusions to which I have arrived, and which the reading of your book surely will not modify. Notwithstanding, as it is absolutely possible that your personal observations may have led you to diametrically opposite results, good faith in the discussion and respect for our readers and ourselves exact that, before entering upon the controversy, a reciprocal interchange of all the documents that we have collected should be made between us. You may take cognizance of mine.

"One other condition, which I entreat you, Madam, to take in good part, and from which I shall not depart under any pretext, is that you shall choose yourself a male sponsor.

"You, who have declared yourself so energetically on this point, would not wish your adversary to make the least sacrifice to gallantry in so serious a discussion; and you are right. But I, Madam, who am so far from admitting your pretensions, cannot thus release myself from the obligations which manly and honorable civility prescribes towards ladies; and as I propose, besides, to make you serve as a subject of experiment; as, after having made the autopsy of five or six women of the greatest merit for the instruction of my readers, I count also on making yours, you will conceive that it is quite impossible for me to argue from you, of you, and with you, without exposing myself at every word to a violation of all the rules of conventionality.

"I know, Madam, that such a condition will annoy you; it is one of the disadvantages of your position to which you must submit courageously. You are a plaintiff, and, as a woman, you affirm that you are oppressed. Appear, then, before the judgment seat of incorruptible public opinion with this tyrannous chain which rouses your ire, and which, according to me, exists only in your disordered imagination. You will be but the more interesting for it. Besides, you would deride me if, while sustaining the superiority of man, I should begin by according to you the equality of woman by disputing with you on an equal footing of companionship. You have not counted, I imagine, upon my falling into this inconsistency.

"You will not lack for champions, besides. I expect of your courtesy, Madam, that he whom you shall select as my antagonist, who will sign and affirm all your articles, and assume the responsibility of your affirmations and replies, shall be worthy of both you and me; so that, in fine, I shall not have a right to complain that you have pitted me against a man of straw.

"What has most surprised me, since this hypothesis of the equality of the sexes, renewed by the Greeks as well as by many others, has become known among us, has been to see that it numbered among its partisans almost as many men as women. I sought a long time for the reason of this strange fact, which I at first attributed to chivalric zeal; I think now that I have found it. It is not to the advantage of the knights. I shall be glad, Madam, for their sake and yours, if this serious examination should prove that the new emancipators of woman are the most lofty, the broadest, and the most progressive, if not the most masculine minds of the age.

"You say, Madam, that women have a weakness for soldiers. It is doubtless on this account that you have lashed me soundly. He who loveth, chasteneth. When I was three years and a half old, my mother, to get rid of me, sent me to a school-mistress of the neighborhood, an excellent woman, called Madelon. One day she threatened to whip me for some piece of mischief. It made me furious. I snatched her switch from her hand, and flung it in her face. I was always a disobedient subject. I shall be glad, therefore, to find that you do not assume towards me castigating airs, which it does not belong to a man to return; but I leave this to your discretion. Strike, redouble the blows, do not spare me; and if I should chance to grow restive under the rod, believe me none the less, Madam, your affectionate servant and compatriot,

"PROUDHON."

Taking up the discussion in turn, I replied as follows, in the ensuing February number:—

I am forbidden, sir, to answer your letter in the indecorous style which you have deemed proper to assume towards me:

By respect for the gravity of my subject;

By respect for our readers;

By respect for myself.

You find yourself ill at ease in the Popilian circle that has been traced around you by the hand of a woman; all understand this, I among the rest. Ill-armed for defence, worse armed, perhaps, for attack, you would like to escape; but your skill as a tactician will avail you nothing; you shall not quit the fatal circle till vanquished, either by me, or by yourself, if you confess your weakness on the point in litigation, by continuing to refuse a discussion under flimsy pretexts, or, lastly, by public opinion, which will award to you the quality of inconsistency, the least desirable of all to a dialectician.

This being understood, I must tell you that, personally, I am satisfied that you should attack, in the rights of woman, the cause of justice and progress. It is an augury of success to this cause; you have always been fatal to all that you have sought to sustain.

It is true that your attitude in this question makes you the ally of the dogmatism of the Middle Age; it is true that the official representatives of this dogmatism avail themselves, at the present time, of your arguments and your name to maintain their influence over women, and through them over men and children; and this in order to revive the past, to stifle the future. Is this your intention? I do not believe it. You are, in my eyes, a subverter, a destroyer, in whom instinct sometimes gets the better of intellect, and from whom it shuts out a clear view of the consequences of his writings. Formed for strife, you must have adversaries; and, in default of enemies, you cruelly fall on those who are fighting in the same ranks with yourself. In all your writings, one feels that the second part of education—that which inspires respect and love of woman—is completely wanting in you.

Let us come to your letter.

You reproach me with having made forty paralogisms; it was your duty at least to have cited one of these. However, let us see.

You say: between man and woman there is a separation of the same nature as that which the difference of race establishes between animals.

Woman, by nature and destination, is neither associate, nor citizen, nor functionary.

She is, until marriage, only apprentice, at most, under-superintendent in the social workshop; she is a minor in the family, and does not form a part of the commonwealth.

You conceive of no destiny for her outside of the household: she can be only housewife or courtesan.

She is incapable of understanding and of governing herself.

To make a paralogism is to draw a conclusion from false premises; now did I conclude from such in saying:

In order that all these paradoxes may become truths, you have to prove:

That man and woman are not of the same race;

That they can be reproduced separately;