[227] "On a vu des femmes tres savantes, comme en fut des guerrieres, mais il n'y en eut jamais d'inventrices." _Dictionnaire Philosophique, sub voce Femmes._ Condorcet, in commenting on this statement, remarks that "if men capable of invention were alone to have a place in the world, there would be many a vacant one, even in the academies." [228] That marvelous structure known as the Taj Mahal--India's noblest tribute to the grace and goodness of Indian womanhood--is sometimes said to be a monument to the memory of Nur Mahal. This is not the case. This matchless gem of architecture-- " ... The proud passion of an emperor's love Wrought into living stone, which gleams and soars With body of beauty shrining soul and thought." is a monument to Nur Mahal's niece and successor as empress, Mumtaz-Mahal--The Crown of the Palace--who, like her aunt, was a woman of rare beauty and talent and endeared herself to her people by her splendid qualities of mind and heart. [229] The inventor of canals as well as of bridges over rivers and causeways over morasses was, according to Greek historians, the famous Assyrian queen, Semiramis, the builder of Babylon with its wonderful hanging gardens. [230] Among the works which treat of the subject-matter of the foregoing pages the reader may consult with profit, _Woman's Share in Primitive Culture_, by O. T. Mason, London, 1895; _Man and Woman_, the introductory chapter, by Havelock Ellis, London, 1898; and _Histoire Nouvelle des Arts et des Sciences_, by A. Renaud, Paris, 1878. [231] Cf. _Women Inventors to whom patents have been granted by the United States Government, Compiled under the Direction of the Commissioner of Patents_, Washington, 1888. See also subsequent reports of the Patent Office. [232] To one woman, Mary E. Poupard, of London, England, were granted in a single year no less than three patents for horse-shoes--two of the patents being for sectional and segmental horse-shoes. CHAPTER XI WOMEN AS INSPIRERS AND COLLABORATORS IN SCIENCE One of the most interesting literary figures of the fifth century was Caius Apollinaris Sidonius, who, after holding a number of important civil offices, became the bishop of Clermont. The most valuable of his extant works are his nine books of letters which are a mine of information respecting the history of his age and the manners, customs and ideals of his contemporaries. In one of these letters, addressed to Hesperius, a young friend of his who exhibited special talent in polite literature, he expresses a sentiment which applies as well to the votary of science as to the man of letters. Referring to the assistance which women had given to their husbands and friends in their studies, he conjures him to remember that in days of old it was the wont of Martia, Terentia, Calpurnia, Pudentilla and Rusticana to hold the lamp while their husbands, Hortensius, Cicero, Pliny, Apuleius and Symmachus, were reading and meditating.[233]