WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE 87 



"Une femme savante 

 Doit cacher son savoir, ou c'est une imprudente." * 



Few French women thereafter had the courage to defend 

 their sex, as did their sisters in Italy, and the result was 

 that, with a few exceptions, like Mme. du Chatelet, Sophie 

 Germain, and Mme. Lepaute, there were no more learned 

 women in France for fully two centuries. 



Never did satire and ridicule accomplish more, except 

 probably in the case of Don Quixote that masterly crea- 

 tion of Cervantes which dealt the death-blow to knight- 

 errantry than did Les Femmes Savantes and Les Pre- 

 cieuses Ridicules. The learned woman became as much an 

 object of derision in France as was the knight-errant in 

 Spain. 



It was not, however, in the nature of the French woman, 

 with all her vivacity and energy, to be suppressed entirely 

 or to be relegated for long to the background in things of 



1 Destouches, in his L 'Homme singulier, makes one of his female 

 characters, who loves study, speak in the following pathetic fashion: 



"A learned woman ought so I surmise 

 Conceal her knowledge, or she'll be unwise. 

 If pedantry a mental blemish be 

 At all times outlawed by society, 

 If 'gainst a pedant all the world inveighs, 

 Shall pass unchecked in woman pedant's ways? 

 I hold it sure, condemned my sex is quite 

 To trifling nothings as its sole birthright; 

 Eidiculous 'tis thought outside its ' sphere'; 

 The learned woman dare not such appear; 

 Nay, she must even cloak her brilliancy 

 So envy leave in peace stupidity; 

 Must keep the level of the common kind, 

 To subjects commonplace devote her mind, 

 And treating these she must be like the rest. 

 Lo, in such garb refinement must be dressed: 

 That knowledge shall not make her seem unwise, 

 She must herself in foolishness disguise. ' ' 



Act III, Scene 7. 



