THE MAGIC OF COQUETRY. 
45 
contempt of traffic, which were, until the invasion of English ideas, 
the distinguishing traits of the French character, were but the 
glorious radiations of feminine royalty. Urbanity of language, 
another conquest of woman’s, is only the expression of the char- 
ity of the heart. Why do all victims of oppression turn their eyes 
toward France ? Because it is the only country where woman 
has preserved some sway, and woman is always on the side of the 
victims, because oppression cannot last where woman reigns. 
The children of Loyola well knew what they were doing when 
they called themselves the champions of the Virgin. 
Why is Moliere so powerful as a thinker, and so beloved as a 
poet? Because he is the most redoubtable champion of good 
sense and of the true and free development of love ; because 
there is not one line of his immortal writings that is not an ardent 
protestation against the oppression of woman, and which does not 
tend to ridicule absurd husbands. 
Moliere, who has revolutionized as many brains as Rousseau 
and Voltaire, was born and could be born only at Paris, capital 
of good sense, where the sympathies of the pit have never broken 
forth for vexed husbands. And here let me say for the honor of 
France, that of all deceived husbands, and the list is a long one, 
that of my country is the most discreet and the most generous. 
Like the husband of Athens, he forgets and pardons ; or if some- 
times, when anguish bewilders him, he poignards the unfaithful 
one, he does not humiliate her. He does not give her over to the 
populace, like the Jewish husband, to have her stoned, still less 
does he think of making money out of his dishonor, like the En- 
glish husband. I know few secrets that have perplexed the phi- 
losophers, poets, and beauties of foreign parts so much as the se- 
cret of this magical power of the Parisian woman ; a power which 
brings all the executioners of the earth to capitulation, and which 
tames the wildness of the turtle-doves. The secret of this power 
is indeed not only in the superiority of her physical charms ; it 
resides especially in the superiority of her title of character, in her 
coquetry ! 
Selfish love and fools have cursed the coquette, let the friend 
of -humanity raise to her an altar in his heart. Coquetry is the 
