FRENCH WOMEN.
From Sketches of French Manners and Customs.
The women do not, as in England, employ themselves solely in household and nursery affairs, but they mix themselves in all the cares of their husbands, and assist them in their trade and business, whatever it may be.—Thus they are constantly found in the counting houses and shops; and they know as much, and often more, of the details of a trade, than their husbands. In Dieppe, every variety of shop and trade had a woman assisting in it, who, from her appearance, might generally be considered as the mistress of the family. At a blacksmith's shop, for instance, I saw a neatly dressed woman, with a very clean cap shoeing a horse; and, passing a second time, I saw her filing at a vice. I expressed my astonishment to the neighbours, but they seemed rather disposed to laugh at me, than to join in my laugh at the woman. I learnt that she was a widow, and thus kept up her husband's trade, to rear a large family. In Paris, I complimented a pretty wife of an eminent bookseller for her knowledge of the prices of paper, printing, and engraving, in which she several times corrected errors of her husband. I remarked, that the French ladies must have great talents thus to learn a trade in the honey moon, which had employed their husbands during an apprenticeship of seven years; and that I supposed she would be equally expert at any other trade, if, on becoming a widow, she married a husband in some other line. "Ah! Monsieur," said she, "we endeavour to assist our spouses in every way in our power;—it is our only pleasure; their cares are our cares, and their interests are ours; and, if it is our calamity to become widows, and we meet with another good husband, we do the best we can for him also."