The preachers take pains to show that she shall indeed be praised, that her ideal is glorious though her lot will be obscure, and that there is a happiness in housewifely duty—in feeling that the whole household moves by her impulse alone. “The wise woman has exalted her house”; on her wisdom and rectitude has depended the greatness or the decay of a family. To pull down is the work of fools. The wise build up, and is not to build up a splendid mission, say the preachers with growing ardour—to build up happiness for those one loves, and one’s own happiness in this world and the world to come? “Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain!” Look at this massive woman, probably happy in her own way, a marvel of plumpness, with firm-set lips and a look of energy and masterfulness, unpoetic but very wholesome—this matron of Lotto, blind to all indications that ironical moonbeams are grimacing behind her; or this superb large-limbed creature, burdened with a cluster of children, whom Holbein presents to us as his wife. These good ladies, we may be sure, rise at six and retire at ten, and from dawn till dark their only aim in life is to take the air, to go to church, to cook and dust and darn. No Utopia worries them, no philosophic idea ruffles the calm monotony of their lot. The majority of French women were sprung from this type in its most pronounced form, the rural form, and it was practically impossible for them to alter. In France men of rank almost all belonged to the class of landed proprietors, and the affairs of these proprietors had been for several years passing through a crisis. Even if their income were below the moderate figure of three or four thousand livres,[59] they had to submit to being eaten out of house and home by a number of traditional functionaries, while on the other hand the growing needs of luxury and the depreciation of money seriously embarrassed them. More than one noble, believing he saw a mine of gold opening in Italy, had joyously buckled on his sword again, only to return impoverished, if not in debt, worn out, and soured in temper.