Instead of the subjection of woman to man, which Proudhon maintains to be inevitable, his young adversary contends that the progress of society requires that men and women shall work together as equals. “A mere glance at the history of mankind,” she argues, “will suffice to show that among nations civilisation is in proportion to the part played by woman, to her influence, to her moral worth; and, as civilisation increases, the greater will be the value set upon the position accorded to woman.” This is an argument which no profound observer of human nature could deny. Unless men and women laugh together you cannot have that true comedy which is the very salt of the intellectual life, was the opinion of George Meredith.[52] “Where the veil is over women’s faces,” he wrote, referring to the silence of comedy among Eastern peoples, “you cannot have society, without which the senses are barbarous, and the comic spirit is driven to the gutters of grossness to slake its thirst.” _Nous avons débrutalisé la société française_ was the proudest boast of Juliette’s forerunner, La Marquise de Rambouillet, foundress of the first great French salon. Mme. Lamessine was one of the earliest French women writers to divine that which this war is proving: woman’s capacity for work, for which her asserted inferiority to man had been held to unfit her. Anticipating John Stuart Mill, Mme. Lamessine demanded that all the liberal professions should be thrown open to women, and that women should be admitted to a share, if not in the legislation at least in the administration, of their country. The rôle of mayoress she considered particularly appropriate to women. She demanded the admission of women to those _conseils de prud’hommes_ which in France regulate disputes between employers and employed.