“Let us drop the subject,” interrupted Madame de T-----; “you may be
sure that I am well aware of all I owe him.”

At last Monsieur de T-----, with a sarcastic remark, dismissed me; my
friend threw the dust in his eyes by making fun of me; and I paid back
both of them by expressing my admiration for Madame de T-----, who
made fools of us all without forfeiting her dignity.  I took myself
off; but Madame de T----- followed me, pretending to have a commission
to give me.

“Adieu, monsieur!” she said, “I am indebted to you for the very great pleasure you have given me; but I have paid you back with a beautiful dream,” and she looked at me with an expression of subtle meaning.  “But adieu, and forever!  You have plucked a solitary flower, blossoming in its loveliness, which no man—­”

She stopped and her thought evaporated in a sigh; but she checked the rising flood of sensibility and smiled significantly.

“The countess loves you,” she said.  “If I have robbed her of some transports, I give you back to her less ignorant than before.  Adieu!  Do not make mischief between my friend and me.”

She wrung my hand and left me.

More than once the ladies who had mislaid their fans blushed as they listened to the old gentleman, whose brilliant elocution won their indulgence for certain details which we have suppressed, as too erotic for the present age; nevertheless, we may believe that each lady complimented him in private; for some time afterwards he gave to each of them, as also to the masculine guests, a copy of this charming story, twenty-five copies of which were printed by Pierre Didot.  It is from copy No. 24 that the author has transcribed this tale, hitherto unpublished, and, strange to say, attributed to Dorat.  It has the merit of yielding important lessons for husbands, while at the same time it gives the celibates a delightful picture of morals in the last century.

MEDITATION XXV.

OF ALLIES.

Of all the miseries that civil war can bring upon a country the greatest lies in the appeal which one of the contestants always ends by making to some foreign government.

Unhappily we are compelled to confess that all women make this great mistake, for the lover is only the first of their soldiers.  It may be a member of their family or at least a distant cousin.  This Meditation, then, is intended to answer the inquiry, what assistance can each of the different powers which influence human life give to your wife? or better than that, what artifices will she resort to to arm them against you?

Two beings united by marriage are subject to the laws of religion and society; to those of private life, and, from considerations of health, to those of medicine.  We will therefore divide this important Meditation into six paragraphs: 

1.  OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION
WITH MARRIAGE.
2.  OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.
3.  OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.
4.  OF THE LOVER’S ALLIES.
5.  OF THE MAID.
6.  OF THE DOCTOR.