At the same time, the business freedom which women enjoy in France has led many women to reflect thoroughly and act vigorously. The reading world is deluged with books relating to woman,--her education, her labor, and her civil rights. Out of this condition of things spring a class who long to share the sorrow and responsibility as well as the joy of liberty. They will not accept the tenderness and pity of such men as Michelet, who veil a profound sensualism with the graces of an affected sentimentality. Sometimes, like George Sand, these women break loose from social ties, test the world for themselves, and, when they have squeezed the orange which looked so tempting, show to others the empty, bitter rind, and return gladly to the daily bread of Divine Ordinance. Once, in Rosa Bonheur, fresh and wise, energetic and vigorous, the French woman has challenged the attention of the civilized world. With no womanish weaknesses, frank, loyal, and endowed with a serious and reflective nature, this artist has asked no leave to be of church or society. "I have no patience," she once said, "with women who ask permission to think. Let women establish their claims by great and good works, and not by conventions." She took the whole world in her two brave woman's hands, _found_ her inheritance, and resolved to enjoy it. It is in France, too, that Clara Demars thinks out all the psychological relations of love and marriage, and reminds us of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, by saying that "truth will never reign over the world, nor between the sexes, until, by being set free, woman loses all temptation to dissimulate." There, too, Flora Tristan provokes a smile by echoing in prose the rhythmic platitudes of Mr. Coventry Patmore, and claiming, not _equality_, but sovereignty and autocracy, for woman. There Pauline Roland boldly claims that marriage shall never be tolerated, till man as well as woman is compelled to keep the law of chastity. There Madame Moniot claims her civil rights from the lecturer's desk; and Désirée Gay, interesting herself practically in the question of woman's labor, rules the women of the national workshops.