But a truce to such insults against those who beautify the earth; _THEIR_ vices cannot excuse ours. It is we who have depraved them by associating them with excesses which are repugnant to their delicacy. The contagion, however, has not affected all of them. Among our 'plebeians,' and even among nobility, many women remind us of the modesty and courage of those ancient republican matrons, who, so to speak, founded, the manners and morals of their country; and among all classes of the community there are thousands who inspire their husbands with generous impulses in the battle of life, either by cheering words of comfort, or by that mute eloquence of duties well fulfilled, which nothing can resist if we are worthy of the name of men. How many a gambler has been reformed by the tender appeals of a good and devoted wife. 'Venerable women!' one of them exclaims, 'in whatever rank Heaven has placed you, receive my homage.' The gentleness of your souls smooths down the roughness of ours and checks its violence. Without your virtues what would we be? Without YOU, my dear wife, what would have become of me? You beheld the beginning and the end of the gaming fury in me, which I now detest; and it is not to me, but to you alone, that the victory must be ascribed.'(95) (95) Dusaulx, _De la Passion du Jeu_. A very pretty anecdote is told of such a wife and a gaming husband. In order to simplify the signs of loss and gain, so as not to be overburdened with the weight of gold and silver, the French players used to carry the representation of their fortunes in small boxes, more or less elegant. A lady (who else could have thought of such a device?), trembling for the fate of her husband, made him a present of one of these dread boxes. This little master-piece of conjugal and maternal affection represented a wife in the attitude of supplication, and weeping children, seeming to say to their father--_THINK OF US!_.... It is, therefore, only with the view of avenging good and honourable women, that I now proceed to speak of those who have disgraced their sex. I have already described a remarkable gamestress--the Persian Queen Parysatis.(96) (96) Chapter III. There were no gamestresses among the Greeks; and the Roman women were always too much occupied with their domestic affairs to find time for play. What will our modern ladies think, when I state that the Emperor Augustus scarcely wore a garment which had not been woven by his wife, his sister, or grand-daughters.(97) (97) Veste non temere alia quam domestica usus est, ab uxore et filia nepotibusque confecta. Suet. in Vita Augusti.