order to clear you of the wrong which you have done in denying that liberty.  The deafening rattle which your wife shakes will follow you everywhere with its obtrusive din.  Your darling will stun you, will torture you, meanwhile arming herself by making you feel only the thorns of married life.  She will greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will be sullen at home.  She will be dull when you are merry, and will make you detest her merriment when you are moody.  Your two faces will present a perpetual contrast.

Very few men have sufficient force of mind not to succumb to this preliminary comedy, which is always cleverly played, and resembles the hourra raised by the Cossacks, as they advance to battle.  Many husbands become irritated and fall into irreparable mistakes.  Others abandon their wives.  And, indeed, even those of superior intelligence do not know how to get hold of the enchanted ring, by which to dispel this feminine phantasmagoria.

Two-thirds of such women are enabled to win their independence by this single manoeuvre, which is no more than a review of their forces.  In this case the war is soon ended.

But a strong man who courageously keeps cool throughout this first assault will find much amusement in laying bare to his wife, in a light and bantering way, the secret feelings which make her thus behave, in following her step by step through the labyrinth which she treads, and telling her in answer to her every remark, that she is false to herself, while he preserves throughout a tone of pleasantry and never becomes excited.

Meanwhile war is declared, and if her husband has not been dazzled by these first fireworks, a woman has yet many other resources for securing her triumph; and these it is the purpose of the following Meditations to discover.

MEDITATION XXIV.

PRINCIPLES OF STRATEGY.

The Archduke Charles published a very fine treatise on military under the title Principles of Strategy in Relation to the Campaigns of 1796.  These principles seem somewhat to resemble poetic canons prepared for poems already published.  In these days we are become very much more energetic, we invent rules to suit works and works to suit rules.  But of what use were ancient principles of military art in presence of the impetuous genius of Napoleon?  If, to-day, however, we reduce to a system the lessons taught by this great captain whose new tactics have destroyed the ancient ones, what future guarantee do we possess that another Napoleon will not yet be born?  Books on military art meet, with few exceptions, the fate of ancient works on Chemistry and Physics.  Everything is subject to change, either constant or periodic.

This, in a few words, is the history of our work.

So long as we have been dealing with a woman who is inert or lapped in slumber, nothing has been easier than to weave the meshes with which we have bound her; but the moment she wakes up and begins to struggle, all is confusion and complication.  If a husband would make an effort to recall the principles of the system which we have just described in order to involve his wife in the nets which our second part has set for her, he would resemble Wurmser, Mack and Beaulieu arranging their halts and their marches while Napoleon nimbly turns their flank, and makes use of their own tactics to destroy them.