It is from your encouragement and approbation, my friends and former co-laborers, that I have drawn the strength necessary to the work I am undertaking; it is just, therefore, that I should thank you in the presence of all. It is equally just that I should publicly express my gratitude to the Italian, English, Dutch, American and German journals that have translated many of my articles; and to the men and women of these different countries as well as of France, who have kindly expressed sympathy for me, and encouraged me in the struggle which I have undertaken against the adversaries of the rights of my sex. To you all, my friends, both Frenchmen and foreigners, I dedicate this work. May it be useful _everywhere_ in the triumph of the liberty of woman, and of the equality of all before the law; this is the sole wish that a Frenchwoman can make who believes in the unity of the human family, as well as in the legitimacy of national autonomies, and who loves all nations, since all are the organs of a single great body,--Humanity. CHAPTER I. MICHELET. Several women have sharply criticised Michelet's "Love." Why are intelligent women thus dissatisfied with so upright a man as Michelet? Because to him woman is a perpetual invalid, who should be shut up in a gynæceum in company with a dairy maid, as fit company only for chickens and turkeys. Now we, women of the west, have the audacity to contend that we are not invalids, and that we have a holy horror of the harem and the gynæceum. Woman, _according to Michelet_, is a being of a nature opposite to that of man; a creature weak, _always wounded, exceedingly barometrical_, and, consequently, unfit for labor. She is incapable of abstracting, of generalizing, of comprehending conscientious labors. She does not like to occupy herself with business, and she is destitute, in part, of judicial sense. But, in return, she is revealed all gentleness, all love, all grace, all devotion. _Created for man_, she is the altar of his heart, his refreshment, his consolation. In her presence he gains new vigor, becomes inspirited, draws the strength necessary to the accomplishment of his high mission as worker, creator, organizer. He should love her, watch over her, maintain her; be at once her father, her lover, her instructor, her priest, her physician, her nurse, and her waiting-maid. When, at eighteen, a virgin in reason, heart and body, she is given to this husband, who should be twenty-eight, neither more nor less, he confines her in the country in a charming cottage, at a distance from her parents and friends, with the rustic maid that we just mentioned. Why this sequestration in the midst of the nineteenth century, do you ask?