Oh, ye thoughtless, heedless mothers of America, would that you could all see these children and take lessons from their mothers. There is a difference in people, and a still greater difference in children. Our American Congress could well afford a commission of ladies to learn the secret of training children, and a school for mothers should be established in every city for their preparation for this important duty. It would pay better than any monetary conference. The French family is an unknown quantity. Monsieur, the husband and father, spends his time at his café according to his quality, while Madame the wife receives her friends, or admirers, if she be not too old to have them, in her drawing-room. There are no homes in France, as the English and Americans understand the word. It would drive a Frenchman crazy if, when business hours are over, he should be compelled to eat his dinner and afterward go up stairs, sit with his wife and children quietly till bed-time, and then retire in good order. Likewise would it be distasteful to the French wife. She may be in love--in fact, she always is--but not with her husband. A Frenchman once, who was too fond of the softer sex, pledged himself to avoid women. Later he was asked if he had kept his pledge. "Certainly, or rather partially. I have religiously avoided Madame; I can keep that pledge always, so far as she is concerned." He meets his wife with, "Good evening, Madame. I trust you have had a pleasant day." "Merci, Monsieur; very pleasant." He does not ask her whether she has been driving out with the children, or with a lover; in fact, he does not care. He knows she has a lover, but that is nothing to him so long as he himself sees nothing wrong. And after dinner he bids her "Good evening," and goes to his favorite café, where he, and other similar husbands, save the country over innumerable bottles of wine, and when the cafés are shut, and there is no other earthly place to visit, he goes home and retires to his room, only to meet Madame the next morning at breakfast. This is not singular. The French girl is kept by her mother under the strictest possible guardianship till she is of the age to marry. She might as well be in a prison, for she is never out from under the sharp eye of her mother, or aunt, or in default of these, a governess. Her life, when she gets to be about fourteen, and begins to know something of what life really is, and wants to enjoy it, is most intolerable. [Sidenote: MARRIAGE IN PARIS.]