Between the moment when the last symptoms appear, and the epoch of conjugal peace, which we will not stop to discuss, almost a dozen years have elapsed.  During this interval and before the married couple sign the treaty which, by means of a sincere reconciliation of the feminine subject with her lawful lord, consecrates their little matrimonial restoration, in order to close in, as Louis XVIII said, the gulf of revolutions, it is seldom that the honest woman has but one lover.  Anarchy has its inevitable phases.  The stormy domination of tribunes is supplanted by that of the sword and the pen, for few loves are met with whose constancy outlives ten years.  Therefore, since our calculations prove that an honest woman has merely paid strictly her physiological or diabolical dues by rendering but three men happy, it is probable that she has set foot in more than one region of love.  Sometimes it may happen that in an interregnum of love too long protracted, the wife, whether from whim, temptation or the desire of novelty, undertakes to seduce her own husband.

Imagine charming Mme. de T-----, the heroine of our Meditation of
Strategy, saying with a fascinating smile: 

“I never before found you so agreeable!”

By flattery after flattery, she tempts, she rouses curiosity, she soothes, she rouses in you the faintest spark of desire, she carries you away with her, and makes you proud of yourself.  Then the right of indemnifications for her husband comes.  On this occasion the wife confounds the imagination of her husband.  Like cosmopolitan travelers she tells tales of all the countries which she had traversed.  She intersperses her conversation with words borrowed from several languages.  The passionate imagery of the Orient, the unique emphasis of Spanish phraseology, all meet and jostle one another.  She opens out the treasures of her notebook with all the mysteries of coquetry, she is delightful, you never saw her thus before!  With that remarkable art which women alone possess of making their own everything that has been told them, she blends all shades and variations of character so as to create a manner peculiarly her own.  You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them.  A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms.  These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed.  The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself to and fro; the Chalcidian woman overcomes you by the witchery of her fine and snowy feet; the Unelmane comes and speaking the dialect of fair Ionia reveals the treasures of happiness unknown before, and in the study of which she makes you experience but a single sensation.