If a woman should say such things, what a universal hue and cry would be raised? Yet men pretend that they are rational! We congratulate woman on having too much common sense ever to be so in this wise. After all these arguments, none of which will bear analysis, comes at last the triumphant objection: women do not claim their rights, many among them are even scandalized by the demand made by a few in the name of all. Do not women demand them, gentlemen? What are a host of American women doing at the present time? What have a number of English women done already? What did Jean Deroin, Pauline Roland and many others, do here in 1848? What am I doing to-day, in the name of a legion of women of whom I am the interpreter? _All_ women do not make reclamations, no; but do you not know that every demand of right is made at first singly? That slaves accustomed to their chains, do not feel them until their instigators to revolt show them the bruises on their flesh? A few only demand their rights, you say; but is it in accordance with principle or with numbers that you judge of the justice of a cause? Did you wait until _all_ the male population demanded their right of universal suffrage in order to decree it to them? Did you wait for the revendication of _all_ the slaves of your colonies before emancipating them? Yes, it is true, gentlemen, that many women are opposed to the emancipation of their sex. What does this prove? That there are human beings abased enough to have lost all sentiment of dignity; but not that right is not right. Among the blacks, there are many who hate, denounce, and deliver up to the scourge and to death those among them who are meditating how to break their chains; which is right, which has the sentiment of human dignity, the latter or the former? We demand our place at your side, gentlemen, because identity of species gives us the right to occupy it. We demand our right, because the inferiority inwhich we are kept is one of the most active causes of the decay of morals. We demand our right, because we are persuaded that woman has to set her stamp on Science, Philosophy, Justice and Politics. We demand our right, lastly, because we are convinced that the general questions, the lack of solution of which threatens our modern civilization with ruin, can only be resolved by the co-operation of woman delivered from her fetters and left free in her genius. Is it not a great proof of our insanity, our _impurity_, gentlemen, that we feel this ardent desire to check the corruption of morals, and to labor for the triumph of Justice, the coming of the reign of Duty and Reason, the establishment of an order of things in which humanity, worthier and happier, shall pursue its glorious destinies without the accompaniment of cannon or the shedding of blood? Is it not because the advocates of emancipation are _impure women whom sin has rendered mad, beings incapable of comprehending Justice and conscientious works_? III.