READER. Personally, I am of your opinion; but it is necessary to foresee and to refute the objections that may be made to you by very intelligent women; these women will say, Reflect, the negation of right is iniquitous, for it is the negation of equality and of human nature. It is as false as dangerous to lay down the principle of the recognition of right only to the extent in which it is claimed; for it is notorious that slaves are not the ones in general to demand their own rights; your affirmation therefore condemns the emancipation of slaves and serfs, and universal suffrage. The objection that you raise against the right on account of the incapacity of women and the low use which they would make of it, might apply quite as well to men who are scarcely more fully emancipated than they; who are often the duplicate of their wife or confessor, or who have no other opinion than that of their electoral committee. In right, as in everything else, an apprenticeship is necessary: woman will make use of it at first badly, then better, then well; for we learn to play on an instrument much more quickly by using it than by learning its theory. The exercise of right gives elevation and dignity, elevates the individual in his own esteem, and causes him to study questions which he would have neglected had he not been obliged to examine them in order to concur in and resolve them. Do you wish women to take to heart matters of general interest? Then give them political right. These objections, may be raised against you. AUTHOR. They were raised against me in 1848 by a number of eminent women, and by many men devoted to the triumph of the new principles. I answered them then and I answer them again to-day: We should speedily agree, if our modern society were not the scene of conflict between two diametrically opposite principles. The question is not to decide whether political right belongs to woman, whether she would develop it, enlarge it, etc., but rather whether she would use it to ensure the triumph of the principle that says to humanity, Advance! or of that which gives as the word of command, Retreat! What is the end of political right? Evidently, to accomplish a great duty in the direction of progress. Well, is it not dangerous to accord it to those who would employ it against this end? What! you struggle for right, in order to obtain the triumph of a holy cause, yet feel no hesitation in according it to those who would certainly make use of right to kill right! You reproach me for acting like the Jesuits, who value justice much less than expediency. Well, gentlemen, if you had had half their ability, you would have been successful long ago. Like true savages, you would think yourselves dishonored by possessing prudence and practical sense, by offering yourselves to battle otherwise than with naked bodies; this may be very fine, very courageous--but as to being sensible, that is another thing.