First, let us explain in a few words how it came about that in a country like France women were able to assume so important a part. Then, we shall proceed to show how vast was their effort, how ardent their quest for happiness, and we shall see why the formula they discovered has not come down to us. INTRODUCTION France is a singular country. We are slightly Greek, half Latin or Ligurian, very Gallic or very German, and in the West, the country of an intellectual gulf-stream, we are dreamers—the Celts of M. Legouvé’s enthusiasm. All of us, whatever our stock, professed in the Middle Ages to adore women; the author of an old _fabliau_ makes the Virgin ask of one of our gallant knights the subtle and searching question, “Is thy lady fairer than I?” But in practice—in other words, in our home life—we treated women like animals, with the whip. We must remark also that, during the whole course of the fifteenth century, France had no time for philosophising: the Hundred Years War and the awful distresses resulting from it; the iron hand and heavy taxation of Louis XI., whose rule was regenerative but very severe; then the Civil War and the Italian expedition—all these circumstances left us no breathing-space, and are in some measure the justification of an aftermath of brutality. It was only in the last years of the century that peace allowed us to reflect, and then activity, prosperity, and happiness burst out like a lightning-flash. Louis XI., who had clear and definite rights over France, had dealt with her like a strenuous husband; Louis XII., who wedded her by chance, treated her with the delicate worship of a lover who has thrown off the every-day concerns of life. By what happy chance did the French, till then so apt, whatever they professed, to value women only on the physical side, take under the influence of kindly peace and individual well-being a step further towards the South, and come to think that women might serve as social guides? The genesis of these ideas was very remarkable. They came from elsewhere. During our convalescence, Italy had become transformed. A great revolution, moral, religious, scientific, and above all aesthetic, had brought once more upon the arena the two eternal protagonists—the Roman spiritualists, and the friends of material force, that is, of imperial Germany. Men are in general inclined to the side of force; their idea of happiness consists in imposing their will upon others, no matter how brutally, or at any rate in donning a uniform—they are born fighters or jockeys. Women, on the contrary, can only hope to exert direct and effectual action by the spiritualising of society; and it is not by handing themselves over to the tender mercies of men, whoever they may be—husbands, lovers, doctors, hydrotherapists—or by aping the manners and talk of men, that they acquire their liberty. They are taken at their own valuation, provided they accentuate their purely feminine qualities.