But let them beware of wishing to enlarge their intelligence and undertake great things. They would be nicknamed _Dame barbue_. Moreover, "it is not in the mediocrity of education that their weakness lies:" it is their weakness that makes "mediocrity of education" inevitable. In one word, they are radically incapable of anything great or serious in the way of culture. Perhaps it would be presumption to contest assertions so firm and uncompromising. I shall not attempt it. I shall beg leave to inquire--for this is the most important point now--whether or not these principles lead us logically and imperiously to the conclusion of M. de Maistre; if a woman, "who would make her husband happy, educate her children well, and not transform herself into an ape in order to _emulate_ man," must therefore renounce not only the exercise of all creative faculty in art and literature, but also of serious self-culture, and turn to her work-basket with no better consolation than the assurance that "Pekin is not in Europe, and that Alexander did not ask in marriage the hand of a niece of Louis XIV." II. The Question Fairly Stated. Before grappling with a subject, one should clearly define its significance. Let us set aside the name of learned women, so strangely misused since the days of Molière. We Frenchmen are too apt to settle great questions with a jest; sending silly prejudices down to posterity to be nourished and perpetuated for centuries with idle railleries. In the first place, is there not a just distinction to be made, lest we commit the error of confounding in the same anathema studious women with learned women, cultivated women with absurd women, women of sense, reflection, and serious habits of application with pedants? Is it not evident that Molière, in his _Femmes Savantes_, attacked neither study nor education, but pedantry, as in his _Tartuffe_ he attacked hypocrisy, not genuine devotion? Did not Molière himself write this beautiful line? "Et je veux qu'une femme ait des clartés de tout"