Madame B* * * listened to me with the most earnest attention; and after I had ceased speaking, she remained silent, as if meditating on what she had heard. At length she said, in a tone of much more seriousness than she had yet used,—"I am quite sure that every word you say is parfaitement exact—your manner persuades me that you are speaking neither with exaggeration nor in jest: cependant ... I cannot conceal from you my astonishment at your statement. The received opinion among us is, that private and concealed infidelities among married women are probably less frequent in England than in France—because it seems to be essentially dans vos mœurs de faire un grand scandale whenever such a circumstance occurs; and this, with the penalties annexed to it, undoubtedly acts as a prevention. But, on the other hand, it is universally considered as a fact, that you are as lenient to the indiscretions of unmarried ladies, as severe to those of the married ones. Tell me—is there not some truth in this idea?"

"Not the least in the world, I do assure you. On the contrary, I am persuaded that in no country is there any race of women from whom such undeviating purity and propriety of conduct is demanded as from the unmarried women of England. Slander cannot attach to them, because it is as well known as that a Jew is not qualified to sit in parliament, that a single woman suspected of indiscretion immediately dies a civil death—she sinks out of society, and is no more heard of; and it is therefore that I have ventured to say, that a compromised reputation among the unmarried ladies of England NEVER occurs."

"Nous nous sommes singulièrement trompés sur tout cela donc, nous autres," said Madame B* * *. "But the single ladies no longer young?" she continued;—"forgive me ... but is it really supposed that they pass their entire lives without any indiscretion at all?"

This question was asked in a tone of such utter incredulity as to the possibility of a reply in the affirmative, that I again lost my gravity, and laughed heartily; but, after a moment, I assured her very seriously that such was most undoubtedly the case.

The naïve manner in which she exclaimed in reply, "Est-il possible!" might have made the fortune of a young actress. There was, however, no acting in the case; Madame B* * * was most perfectly unaffected in her expression of surprise, and assured me that it would be shared by all Frenchwomen who should be so fortunate as to find occasion, like herself, to receive such information from indisputable authority. "Quant aux hommes," she added, laughing, "je doute fort si vous en trouverez de si croyans."

We pursued our conversation much farther; but were I to repeat the whole, you would only find it contained many repetitions of the same fact—namely, that a very strong persuasion exists in France, among those who are not personally well acquainted with English manners, that the mode in which marriages are arranged, rather by the young people themselves than by their relatives, produces an effect upon the conduct of our unmarried females which is not only as far as possible from the truth, but so preposterously so, as never to have entered into any English head to imagine.

So few opportunities for anything approaching to intimacy between French and English women arise, that it is not very easy for us to find out exactly what their real opinion is concerning us. Nothing in Madame B* * *'s manner could lead me to suspect that any feeling of reprobation or contempt mixed itself with her belief respecting the extraordinary license which she supposed was accorded to unmarried woman. Nothing could be more indulgent than her tone of commentary on our national peculiarities, as she called them. The only theme which elicited an expression of harshness from her was the manner in which divorces were obtained and paid for: "Se faire payer pour une aventure semblable! ... publier un scandale si ridicule, si offensant pour son amour-propre—si fortement contre les bonnes mœurs, pour en recevoir de l'argent, was," she said, "perfectly incomprehensible in a nation de si braves gens que les Anglais."

I did my best to defend our mode of proceeding in such cases upon the principles of justice and morality; but French prejudices on this point are too inveterate to be shaken by any eloquence of mine. We parted, however, the best friends in the world, and mutually grateful for the information we had received.

This conversation only furnished one, among several instances, in which I have been astonished to discover the many popular errors which are still current in France respecting England. Can we fairly doubt that, in many cases where we consider ourselves as perfectly well-informed, we may be quite as much in the dark respecting them? It is certain that the habit so general among us of flying over to Paris for a week or two every now and then, must have made a great number of individuals acquainted with the external aspect of France between Calais and Paris, and also with all the most conspicuous objects of the capital itself—its churches and its theatres, its little river and its great coffee-houses: but it is an extremely small proportion of these flying travellers who ever enter into any society beyond what they may encounter in public; and to all such, France can be very little better known than England is to those who content themselves with perusing the descriptions we give of ourselves in our novels and newspapers.

Of the small advance made towards obtaining information by such visits as these, I have had many opportunities of judging for myself, both among English and French, but never more satisfactorily than at a dinner-party at the house of an old widow lady, who certainly understands our language perfectly, and appears to me to read more English books, and to be more interested about their authors, than almost any one I ever met with. She has never crossed the Channel, however, and has rather an overweening degree of respect for such of her countrymen as have enjoyed the privilege of looking at us face to face on our own soil.