332 PERVERSE WOMEN ADDICTED TO CROSS THEIR HUSBAND.

the pace of old age is so slow, and the scene is so weak and troubled, that he will live and do his old office in the same house a year together, without being perceiv'd. And after a fit interval of time, letters are pretended to come a great way off, from I know not where, very humble, suppliant, and full of promises of amendment; by vertue of which he is again receiv'd into favour. Does Monsieur make any bargain, or send away any dispatch that does not please? 'tis supprest, and causes afterward forg'd to excuse the want of execution in the one, or answer in the other. No strange letters are first brought to him; he never sees any, but those that shall seem fit for his own knowledge: if by accident they fall first into his own hand, being us'd to trust some body to read them to him, he reads extempore what he thinks fit, and very often makes such a one ask him pardon, who abuses and rails at him in his letter. Finally he sees nothing, but by an image prepar'd and design'd before hand, and the most satisfactory they can invent, not to rouze and awake his ill humour and choler. I have seen enow differing forms of oeconomy, long, constant, and of like effect. Women, especially the perverse and elder sort, are evermore addicted to cross their husband: they lay hold with both hands on all occasions to contradict and oppose them, and the first excuse serves for a plenary justification. I have seen a wife who has grosly purloyned from her husband, that, as she told her confessor, she might distribute the more liberal alms: let who will trust to that religious dispensation. No management of affairs seems to them of sufficient dignity, if proceeding from the husband's assent; they must usurp either by insolence, or cunning, and always injuriously, or else it has not the grace of that authority they desire. When, as in the case as I am speaking of, 'tis against a poor old man, and for the children, that they make use of this title to serve their passion with glory; and as in a common servitude, easily monopolize against his government and dominion. If they be males grown up, and flourishing, they presently corrupt either by force or favour, both steward, receivers, and all the rout. Such as have neither wife, nor son, do not so easily fall into this misfortune; but withal more cruelly, and undeservingly. Cato the elder in his time, said, "so many servants, so many enemies." Consider then, whether according to the vast difference betwixt the purity of the age he liv'd in, and the corruption of this of ours, he does not seem to advertise us, that wife, son and servant, so many enemies to us? 'Tis well for old age, that it is always accompanied with stupidity, ignorance, and a facility of being deceiv'd; for should we see how we are us'd, and would not acquiesce, what would become of us? especially in such an age as this, where the very judges who are to determine, are usually partial to the young, in any cause that comes before them. In case that the discovery of this cheat escape me, I cannot at least fail to discern that I am very fit to be cheated; and can a man ever enough speak the value

of a friend, in comparison with these civil tyes? The very image of it, which I see so pure and uncorrupted in beasts, how religiously do I respect it? If others deceive me, yet do I not at least deceive my self, in thinking I am able to defend me from them, or in cudgeling my brains to make my self so? I protect myself from such treasons in my own bosom, not by an unquiet and tumultary curiosity, but rather by mirth and resolution. When I hear talk of any ones condition, I never trouble my self to think of him, I presently turn my eyes upon my self; to see in what condition I am; what ever concerns another, relates to me, the accident that has befaln him, gives me caution, rouzes me to turn my defence that way. We every day and every hour say things of another, that we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but revert our observation to our own concerns, as well as extend it to others. And several authors have in this manner prejudic'd their own cause, by running headlong upon those they attack, and darting those shafts against their enemies, that are more properly, and with greater advantage to be turn'd upon them. The last Mareschal de Monluc, having lost his son, who was slain at the isle of Madera; in truth a very brave gentleman, and of great expectation, did to me, amongst his other regrets, very much insist upon what a sorrow and heart-breaking it was, that he had never made himself familiar and acquainted with him; and by that humour of fatherly gravity and sowrness, to have lost the opportunity of having an insight into, and of well knowing, his son; as also of letting him know the extream affection he had for him, and the worthy opinion he had of his vertue. "That poor boy," said he, “never saw in me any other, than a stern and disdainful countenance, and is gone in a belief, that I neither knew how to love or esteem him according to his desert. For whom did I reserve the discovery of that singular affection I had for him in my soul? Was it not he himself who ought to have had all the pleasure of it, and all the obligation? I forc'd and rack'd my self to put on and maintain this vain disguise, and have by that means depriv'd my self of the pleasure of his conversation, and, I doubt in some measure, his affection, which could not but be very cold towards me, having never other from me than austerity; nor felt other than a tyrannical manner of proceeding." I find this complaint to be rational and rightly apprehended; for as I my self know by too certain experience, there is so sweet consolation in the loss of friends, as the conscience of having no reserve of secret for them; and to have had with them a perfect and entire communication. Oh my friend! am I the better for being sensible of this; or am I the worse? I am doubtless much the better. I am consolated and honoured in the sorrow for his death. Is it not a pious and a pleasing office of my life to be always upon my friends obsequies? Can there be any joy equal to this privation; I open my self to my family, as much as I can, and

334 HEAVY JOYNTURES FATAL TO ESTATES AND FAMILIES.

very willingly let them know, in what estate they are in my opinion and good will, as I do every body else. I make hast to bring out, and expose my self to them; for I will not have them mistaken in me in any thing. Amongst other particular customs of our ancient Gauls, this, as Cæsar reports, was one, that the sons never presented themselves before their fathers, nor durst ever appear in their company in publick, till they began to bear arms: as if they would intimate by that, that it was also time for their fathers to receive them into their familiarity and acquaintance. I have observed yet another sort of indiscretion in fathers of my time, that not contented with having deprived their children during their own long lives, of the share they naturally ought to have had in their fortunes, they afterwards leave to their wives the same authority over their estates, and liberty to dispose of them according to their own fancy: and have known a certain lord one of the principal officers of the crown, who having in his prospect, by right of succession, above fifty thousand crowns yearly revenue, died necessitous, and overwhelmed with debt, at above fifty years of age; his mother in his extreamest decrepitude and necessity, being yet in possession of all his goods by the will of his father, who had, for his part, lived till near fourscore years old. This appears by no means reasonable to me: and therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man, whose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife that will charge his estate with so great a joynture: there being no sort of foreign debt or encumbrance, that brings greater and more frequent ruin to estates and families, than that. My predecessors have ever been aware of that danger, and provided against it, and so have I : but those who dissuade us from rich wives, for fear they should be less tractable and kind, are out in their advice, to make a man lose a real convenience for so frivolous a conjecture. It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one wrong, than another. They love but where they have the most reason. Injustice allures them, as the honour of their vertuous actions does the good; and the more riches they bring with them, they are by so much the more gentle, and sweet natur'd; as women who are fair, are more inclin'd, and proud to be chast. 'Tis reasonable to leave the administration of affairs to the mothers, during the minority of the children; but the father has brought them up very ill, if he cannot hope, that when they come to maturity, they will have more wisdom and dexterity in the management of affairs, than his wife, considering the ordinary weakness of the sex. It were notwithstanding, to say the truth, more against nature, to make the mothers depend upon the discretion of their children: they ought to be plentifully provided for, to maintain themselves according to their quality and age, by reason that necessity is much more indecent and insupportable to them, than to men; and therefore the son is rather to be cut short, than the mother. In general, the most judicious distribution of our goods, when we come

to die, is, in my opinion, to let them be distributed according to the custom of the country. The laws have considered it better than we know how to do, and 'tis better to let them fail in their election, than rashly to run the hazard of miscarrying in ours. Neither are they properly ours, since, by a civil prescription, and without us, they are all judged to certain successors. And altho we have some liberty beyond that, yet I think we ought not, without great and manifest cause, to take away that from him, and to which the publick equity gives him title; and that it is against reason to abuse this liberty, in making it to serve our own frivolous and private fancies. My destiny has been kind to me, in not preventing me with occasions to tempt and divert my affection from the common and legitimate institution. I see well enough, with whom 'tis time lost, to employ a long diligence of good offices: a word ill taken obliterates ten years merit; and he is happy, who is in place to oyl their good will at their last passage. The last action carries it not the best, and most frequent offices, but the most recent and present do the work. These are people that play with their wills, as with apples and rods, to gratifie or chastise every action of those, that pretend to an interest in their care. "Tis a thing of too great weight and consequence, to be so tumbled and tost, and alter'd every moment: and wherein the wise men of the world determine once for all, having therein above all things, a regard to reason, and the publick observance. We also lay these masculine substitutions too much too heart, proposing a ridiculous eternity to our names. And are moreover too superstitious in the vain conjectures of the future which we derive from the little observations we make of the words and actions of children. Peradventure they might have done me an injustice, in dispossessing me of my right, for having been the most dull and heavy, the most slow and unwilling at my book, not of all my brothers only, but of all the boys in the whole province: whether about learning my lesson, or any other bodily exercise. 'Tis a folly to make an extraordinary election upon the credit of these divinations, wherein we are so often deceived. If the rule of primogeniture were to be violated, and the destinies corrected in the choice they have made of our heirs, one might more plausibly do it upon the account of some enormous personal deformity: a constant and incorrigible vice, and in the opinion of us French, who are great admirers of beauty, of important prejudice. The pleasant dialogue betwixt Plato's legislator, and his citizens, will be an ornament to this place. "What," said they, feeling themselves about to die, "may we not dispose of our own to whom we please? good god, what cruelty! That it shall not be lawful for us, according as we have been served, and attended in our sickness, in our old age, and other affairs, to give more or less to those whom we have found most diligent about us, at our own fancy and discretion! To which the Legislator answers thus; "my friends, who are now without question, very soon

336 WOMEN SURE TO WHOM PEROGATIVE OVER MEN IS DUE.

to die, it is hard for you in the condition you are, either to know your selves, or what is yours, according to the Delphick inscription. I, who make the laws, am of opinion, that you neither are your selves your own, neither is that yours of which you are possest. Both your goods, and you belong to your families, as well those past, as those to come; but yet both your family and goods do much more appertain to the publick. Wherefore lest any flatterer in your age, or in your sickness, or any passion of your own, should unseasonably prevail with you to make an unjust will, I shall take care to prevent that inconvenience. But having respect both to the universal interest of the city, and that of your particular family, I shall establish laws, and make it by lively reason appear, that a particular convenience ought to give place to the common benefit. Go then chearfully where human necessity calls you. It belongs to me, who have no more respect to one thing than another: and who, as much as in me lies, am careful of the publick concern, to take care of what you leave behind you.

To return to my subject it appears to me that such women are very rarely born, to whom the prerogative over men, in others excepted, is in any sort due; unless it be for the punishment of such as in some lustful humour have voluntarily submitted themselves to them: but that does nothing concern the old ones, of which we are now speaking. This consideration it is, which has made us so willing to forge and give force to a law which was never yet seen by any one; and by which, women are excluded the succession to this crown, and there is hardly a government in the world, where it is not pleaded, as 'tis here, by meer reason of the thing that gives it authority, tho' fortune has given it more credit in some places, than in others. 'Tis dangerous to leave the disposal of our succession to their judgment, according to the choice they shall make of children, which is often fantastick and unjust; for the irregular appetite and depraved tast they have, during the time of their being with child, they have at all other times in the mind. We commonly see them fond of the most weak, ricketty, and deform'd children; or of those, if they have such, as are hanging at their breasts. For not having sufficient force of reason to choose and embrace that which is most worthy, they the more willingly suffer themselves to be carried away, where the impressions of nature are most alone: like animals that know their young no longer than they give them suck. As to what remains, it is easie by experience to be discerned, that this natural affection to which we give so great authority, has but a very weak and shallow root. For a very little profit we every day ravish their own children out of the mothers arms, and make them take ours in their room: we make them abandon their own to some pitiful nurse, to which we disdain to commit ours, or to some she-goat: forbidding them, not only to give them suck, what danger soever they run thereby, but moreover, to take any manner of care of them, that they may