108 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



late as the time of Henry VIII it was regarded as an 

 authoritative manual on the topics treated. 



So great, indeed, was the extent and variety of Chris- 

 tine's attainments, so thoroughly had she studied the Latin 

 and Greek authors, sacred and profane, and so profound 

 was her knowledge of all the subjects which she dealt with 

 in her numerous books that "one cannot but feel a certain 

 astonishment when one finds in a woman in the fourteenth 

 century an erudition such as is hardly possessed by the 

 most laborious of men." 



When we read the eloquent plea which this learned 

 woman of five centuries ago makes in behalf of her sex, 

 when we note the examples she quotes of women ' ' illumined 

 of great sciences," and consider the arguments by which 

 she demonstrated the capacity of women for all scientific 

 pursuits, we can easily fancy that we are reading the brief 

 of some modern exponent of the woman's rights movement 

 and are almost disposed to believe that La Bruyiere was 

 right when he declared, Les anciens out tout dit. For so 

 cogent is Christine's reasoning and so thoroughly does she 

 traverse her subject from every point of view that she 

 has left later writers little to add to the controversy except 

 matters of detail which were not available in her time. 



In spite, however, of Christine's Cyte of Ladyes, "in 

 which," according to our mediaeval paragon, "women, 

 hitherto scattered and defenceless, were forever to find 

 refuge against all their slanderers," in spite of the fact 

 that the foundations of this city were laid by Reason, 

 that its walls and cloisters were built on Righteousness, and 

 its battlements and high towers on Justice, in spite of the 

 fact that the material entering into its construction was 

 "stronger and more durable than any marble," and that 

 it was, as our author declares, "a city right fair, without 

 fear and of perpetual during to the world a city that 

 should never be brought to nought," Christine's work was 

 soon lost sight of, and the right of women to the same in- 



