In the countries of Latin blood and spirit they start from a principle absolutely the reverse. Women are not at all “men for the nonce”; in the picturesque words of good François de Moulins, addressed to his pupil Francis I., “Never forget that women came from Adam’s side, not from his feet.” They are not substitutes for men, but have their own proper sphere. Castiglione has given us the typical formula in his famous book _The Courtier_. “Man,” says he, “has for his portion physical strength and external activities; all doing must be his, all inspiration must come from woman.” She is, in his own words, the “motive force.” One recalls the smiling remark of the charming Duchess of Burgundy: “I am always delighted when it is women who govern, because then it is men who direct.” But according to Castiglione, the world ought to show the very opposite: men should govern and women direct; men act, women think, or mayhap dream. The former should have the material tasks of administration and practical affairs; the latter the spiritual and idealist realm. Looked at in this way, it is obvious how much larger the woman’s part suddenly becomes, and what supreme importance it holds in the life of the world. Instead of serving her husband merely as the material replenisher of his stock and an under-manager for his affairs, the woman will carve out her own path and enjoy personal freedom, and will be the better able to lift up her head at home and in society for knowing that she represents there something more than the flesh; she will be the soul, the seeker after noble thoughts—thoughts necessary to happiness, but which the practical spirit of men scarcely permits them to pursue. There will be no question (to the great disappointment of certain modern aesthetes, who after all profit very largely by the railways and telegraphs) of declaring a relentless war against industry, manufactures, the business of administration; this unpleasing but serviceable sphere must simply be left to men, and upon this sordid earthly existence must be erected the frail edifice of general happiness—the true life—a life of enthusiasm, beauty, and thought; in other words, we must relax the bonds of the material life, take time to fetch our breath, and infuse into realism a new and brighter spirit by means of the love of the beautiful. That is women’s task; in the words of Ecclesiastes, “Their hearts are snares and nets, their hands are as chains.” They are the queens of happiness, and they must compel us to be happy and to enjoy the happiness necessary to us. With this end in view, the women of the Renaissance formed a league: they accomplished on behalf of the rights of the heart a sort of _coup d’état_, the story of which we are about to relate. Finally, no one was happy after all. But it is interesting to know why.