Then followed a few practical details concerning the method and conditions of good study, useful reading, and serious composition. Various observations were addressed to me _à propos_ of this publication; eager contradictions coming side by side with the most favorable expressions of approbation. This did not surprise me. In an age like ours, such counsel could hardly be given with impunity. In the land of Molière an appeal to women to study, to educate themselves, to cultivate letters and the fine arts, could not be allowed to pass unreproved. Allow me, then, to have recourse to the _Correspondant_, that my various opponents may be answered at one stroke. The most considerate and the most serious among them supported themselves, not upon Molière, but, strange to say, upon M. de Maistre. It is M. de Maistre, then, with the quotations made from his works and the objections raised in his name, who demands my first consideration. I. M. De Maistre's Opinion. Some of M. de Maistre's letters to his daughters form a veritable treatise upon the humble destiny of woman here below, and the sumptuary laws that should regulate her acquirements and education. "A woman's great defect," he writes, "is being like a man, and to wish for learning is to wish to be a man. Enough if a woman be aware that Pekin is not in Europe, and that Alexander the Great did not demand a niece of Louis XIV. in marriage." Also M. de Maistre allows her in scientific matters to follow and "understand the doings of men." This is her most perfect accomplishment, her _chef-d'oeuvre_. He permits women, moreover, to love and admire the beautiful; but what he does not permit is, that they should themselves seek to give it expression. When his eldest daughter, Mademoiselle Adele de Maistre, avowed a taste for painting, and when the youngest, Mademoiselle Constance, confided to her father her ardent love for literary pursuits, M. de Maistre, in, alarm, taking shelter behind the triple authority of Solomon, Fénélon and Molière, declared that women should not devote themselves to pursuits opposed to their duties; that a woman's merit lies in rendering her husband happy, in educating children, and in making men; that, from the moment she emulates man, she becomes an ape; that women have never achieved a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of any kind; that a young girl is insane to undertake oil-painting, and should content herself with pencil-sketches: that, moreover, science is of all things the most dangerous for women; that no woman must occupy herself with science under pain of being ridiculous and unhappy; and, finally, that a coquette is far easier to marry than a scholar. In virtue of this last argument, which embraces the preceding ones, M. de Maistre recommends them all to return to their work-baskets, conceding, however, the consecration of a few hours to study by way of distraction. {26}