M. DE GIRARDIN _somewhat abruptly_. Gentlemen, I agree with you that woman ought to be free and equal with man; only I maintain that her function is to manage, to economize, and to rear her children, while man labors and brings into the household the product of his industry. As I wish woman to be freed from servitude and all children to be rendered legitimate, I suppress civil marriage, and institute universal dowry. M. LEGOUVE _smiling_. You go too fast and too far, my dear sir, you will frighten everybody. At least, I believe like you in the equality of the sexes through the equivalence of their functions, but I take good care not to breathe a word of it. I content myself with claiming for woman instruction, diminution of conjugal servitude, and offices of charity; counting, between ourselves, that these victories obtained, women will be in a position through their education and proved utility, to affranchise themselves completely. Well! despite my reserve and moderation, you see that some call me _effeminate_, others _sans culotte_. M. MICHELET, _rising with tears in his eyes_. Alas, gentlemen, you are all in the wrong road; and I am very sorry, my beloved academician Legouvé, to see you employ your elegant pen in leading woman in so perilous and irrational a way. As to you, gentlemen, who lay claim to liberty and equality of rights for woman, you are not authorized by her to do so; she demands no right, what should she do with it--a being always feeble, always sick, always wounded. Poor creature! What can be her rôle here below, if not to be adored by her husband, whose duty it is to constitute himself her instructor, her physician, her confessor, her sick nurse, her waiting-maid; to keep her in a hot-house, and with all these multiplied cares to earn beside the daily bread; for woman cannot, ought not to work; she is the love and the altar of the heart of man. Some among you have dared utter the vile word: Divorce. No divorce! The woman who has given herself away, has received the imprint of man. You should not abandon her, however guilty she may be. I thought in the beginning that after your death she ought to wear mourning to the tomb, beyond which, she and her husband would be fused into the unity of love. But I have thought better of it; you may appoint a successor. While Michelet is seating himself, wiping his eyes, the lid of a coffin is seen to rise, and Comte exclaims in a sepulchral tone: _Worthily_ and _admirably_ spoken, illustrious professor! What! you here? exclaims the assembly. Then one does not perish entirely, as you taught your disciples?