And their scheme will be this. They will interpose, almost like angels, between heaven and earth; they will love us and we shall love them; they will gently invert the order of things, so as to make of life a work of art. They will efface two of the three blind forces which govern us—Death, Fortune, and Love. If they do not prevent all failures and weaknesses, they will cheer and comfort them by means of a potent elixir, obtained from a God of philosophy, like physicians who cure by allopathy. So many springs are creaking and snapping for want of a drop of oil! they will pour out that drop. So many noble things lack the sap of life! they will give them that sap, that vitality, that soul. The sap of love brings grapes from thorns! Si l’amour fault, la foy n’est plus chérie; Si foy périt, l’amour s’en va périe. Pour ce, les ay en devise liez: _Amour et foy_.[6] And thereby the transformation, or at any rate the amelioration, of the world is to be achieved. Men are not, perhaps, so intractable and brutal as they pretend; by their own account they would be quite content to accomplish the journey of life eating and sleeping behind drawn curtains. We must not believe them. They have shut themselves up in a bare workshop: throw open the windows, let the sun stream broadly in, bringing light and warmth and the balmy breath of nature. The effects of the old system of morality, with its bolts and bars, have been seen only too often; the loathing of vice, the noble pride of virtue and aesthetic intelligence are also forces; and they alone can make of our terrible abode a truly sacred dwelling, open, free, dear to our hearts, the monument of human affection and of happiness. Thus, briefly, the conclusion was reached that women can transform themselves and become the chief element in human society, that of happiness. Hitherto they had been understudies to their husbands; they had believed themselves bound to take an interest in the work, ideas, and tastes of a man, with no other recompense than the satisfaction derived from a duty done. They had to issue forth like butterflies from the chrysalis, and to become women full of charm, in order to direct the affairs which men believed they had in their own hands, and in order to fascinate, to enfold, to struggle if need be, but without violence or parade. Then they had to rise a step higher, become objects of love, propagate love, and bring all things into harmony. Thanks to these ideas, Italy at the end of the fifteenth century had taken a marvellous bound towards the beautiful.[7] Spain likewise had leapt towards chivalry; it was like the raising of a curtain, so sudden was the change: women, hitherto shut up in their boudoirs, appeared in all their radiance like goddesses.