“No, they are not women; the more we know them, the less they give us that sensation of sweet intoxication which the real woman never fails to give. Look at their toilets; they are birds, they are flowers, they are serpents, but they are not women. The object of their lives is to rival one another and to pursue their admirers. It amuses them to see men overpowered, conquered and governed by the irresistible force of woman, and, as time goes on, the tendency develops like a hidden instinct, and grows gradually into an instinct of war and conquest. Take Madame de Burne for an example. She is a widow. Perhaps it was her marriage with a despotic churl that awoke in her heart a longing to execute vengeance, a sombre craving to make men suffer for all that she had endured at the hands of one of them, to feel herself for once the strongest, able to bend the will of others, to inflict suffering, and to conquer opposition. But before all else she is a born coquette. Her heart does not hunger for emotion, like the hearts of tender and sensitive women. She does not desire the love of one man, she does not seek the happiness of a strong passion; what she would like is the admiration of all, and if you would remain her friend, you must love her. It is not the real wine of former times. Love was different under the Restoration, it was different under the Second Empire, and now it has become different again. When the romanticists idealised women and made them dream dreams, women introduced into life the experiences of their hearts whilst reading. Nowadays you pride yourselves on the suppression of all deceitful, poetic glamour, and your novels are as dry as your lives; but believe me, no more love in your books, no more love in your lives!” Afterwards he continues: “Look at this Madame de Burne who is so charming, so amiable, so clever and so fascinating. It is not her wishes that torment her, it is her nerves. She thinks, she does not feel; or she thinks her feelings. She is proud of her intellect and has no idea of the narrowness of her intelligence. Nothing interests her in which she cannot make herself the central point. She expects too much from men, she expects too much from their goodness, their nature, their character, their delicacy, while she herself never has anything to give that is not for every one alike. Woman was created and came into the world for two purposes--for love and for the child. But this kind of woman is incapable of loving and does not wish for children. If she happens to have any, they are a misfortune and a burden to her.”