86 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



had recourse to them as to arsenals which supplied them 

 with just the arms they had so long needed to decide in 

 their favor the long warfare which they had been conduct- 

 ing against the gentler sex. The views of the bourgeois 

 Chrysale as expressed to his sister, Belise, were so in har- 

 mony with their own that they loved on every occasion to 

 repeat with him: 



"No, 



It isn't decent, and for many reasons, 

 That womankind should study and know too much. 

 To teach her children what is right and wrong, 

 Manage her household, oversee her servants, 

 And keep expenses within bounds, should be 

 Her only study and philosophy. 



Our fathers, on this point, showed great good sense; 

 They said a woman always knows enough 

 If but her understanding reaches 

 To telling, one from t'other, coat and breeches. 

 Their wives, who couldn't read, led honest lives, 

 Their households were their only learned theme, 

 And all their books were thimble, thread and needles. 

 With which they made their daughters' wedding outfits, 

 But now our women scorn to live like that; 

 They want to write and all be authoresses. 

 They think no knowledge is too deep for them." 1 



Holier e's intention in writing these justly famous come- 

 dies was not, as is so often asserted, to ridicule women of 

 learning, but only those superficial pedants who affected 

 knowledge or loved to make a display of the little knowl- 

 edge they happened to possess. The result, however, was 

 quite different from what had been intended, for the poet 's 

 pleasantries were taken so seriously, that even women of 

 real learning, in order to avoid ridicule, were condemned 

 to absolute silence. The comic dramatist, Destouches, ex- 

 pressed the prevailing opinion when he wrote : 



iLes Femmes Savantes, Act II, Scene 7. 



