The true character of women who have none was the first theme to be treated controversially, with examples in lieu of arguments; then the desirability of getting married in certain cases where the marriage ceremony had been dispensed with; then, in due time, the rights of natural children and their compromising effect in connection with mothers proposing to lead a new life. The son-in-law question—of such slight interest to Englishmen—had meantime sprung up; and the quiet, studious son-in-law, bullied by his wife’s mother; the fashionably extravagant son-in-law, devouring the substance of his wife’s father; the idle but well-meaning son-in-law, misunderstood by every one, were turn by turn exhibited. Finally, the divorce question produced a whole crop of pieces, serious and comic; and it may be that the treatment of this question by a succession of dramatists, who dwelt on the misery and disgrace resulting from marriages practically dissolved, but legally indissoluble, had some effect in hastening the adoption of M. Naquet’s Bill. The cruel position of a husband chained to a disreputable wife, and unable to set himself free, has been shown in one of M. Sardou’s most effective pieces, which, thirty years ago, when England also was without a divorce law, would have been as effective in England as in France. But it was difficult for English audiences to realise the situation; and now that continued wedlock between husbands and wives who hate one another is no longer enforced by law, the difficulty for French audiences may soon be equally great. With the passing of M. Naquet’s Divorce Bill such pieces as the _Odette_ of M. Sardou, the _Diane de Lys_ of M. Alexandre Dumas the younger, and the _Fiammina_ of M. Mario Uchard lost all significance. When the pressure of the matrimonial knot has become quite unbearable it is now no longer necessary either that the wife should retire to a convent or that the husband should be shot. The difficulty is solved by the simpler, though less dramatic, means of a divorce. It is matter of publicity that immediately after M. Naquet’s Bill became law the author of _La Fiammina_ took precisely this view of his own matrimonial trouble.