60 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
For do you know the ignominious myth concealed under the 
robust opulence of these forms — do you know the meaning of that 
superb oyster- woman seated by Praxiteles and Protogenes of old, 
on the back of the tortoise ? This humble attitude meant to say, 
that the principal merit of w^oman consists in putting neither her 
head nor her foot out of her household, and that she should limit 
the development of her intelligence to the cares of the kitchen pot 
and the mending of her husband’s clothes. 
The principle of the ancient conjugal policy was the same that 
the obscurants of all ages — that the short-sighted conservatives of 
our own day — have applied so shamefully to governmental policy ; 
the impious principle of quietism, and of every one for himself, per- 
sonified by the turtle, and glorified by the journals of commerce. 
The civilizees at large, who understand nothing of this, are per- 
fectly free to admire the substantial and bulging shape of the 
squatting creature ; but I, who know the under faee of the cards, 
am naturally less prone to praise ; and it is precisely this harmony 
of the groiipi so much admired by the vulgar, that frightens and 
incenses me. I feel that this low brow, those vast and heavy 
sides, set too well on the slave ; and that this figure is fixed for a 
long time to the back of her steed, whence she will not fly away. 
I pardon the old who make the laws — I pardon the notary and 
the banker their interested sympathies for the Venus of the turtle ; 
but let young men of letters, who care to remain my friends, be- 
ware of ever confiding to me that they prefer this massive figure 
to those of Coustou arranged near it, for I forewarn them that I 
am disposed to think all imaginable evil of them. Coustou, Wat- 
teau, and Gavarni are the three artists who have best understood 
and best expressed, by the chisel, the brush, the crayon, the nature 
of those seductions which are special to the woman of Paris — dis- 
tinction, grace, and coquetry. 
To the sculptor, the goddesses ; to the painter, the marchion- 
esses ; to the crayon-drawer, the lorettes ; the last comer, accord- 
ing to custom, has been the best served. Artists who have only 
succeeded in producing tiresome and heavy figures in sculpture 
and painting, are in the habit of treating the Coustous, Watteaus, 
and Gavarnis as affected^ because they are pretty. In literature, 
