With the tact and common-sense which are the salient and most characteristic features of French women, I regret that France is not under a constitutional monarchy, and that the French throne is not occupied by a Frenchwoman. The two most successful reigns recorded in English history are the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, which makes me wonder how it is that Salic law is not repealed in all those countries where man alone is allowed either to rule or only reign.
The best illustration of the superiority of woman over man in France is to be seen in the Duval restaurants. It is a woman who, in the twinkling of the eye, multiplies the number of dishes you have eaten by their respective prices and hands you the total always right. She is responsible for the amount charged. If she makes a mistake, she has to pay for it. And how I pity the clerk at the door, always a man, who is satisfied with giving you a bill and seeing that you return it duly paid before you go out! That is all he has to do besides yawning and constantly pushing the door which the customers often leave open or not carefully closed. In business, all the responsible posts are held by women, certainly nine times out of ten. In most shops, fashionable or humble, through the little square hole over which is written 'Pay Here,' you see madame smiling, receiving the money, booking it and keeping it. Monsieur walks about the place and sees to, or, rather, looks at, everything. If that man dies, his wife may regret him, but she can do without him. She has the whole business at her fingers' ends. Instead of being the partner of the firm, she now becomes the sole mistress of the establishment.
The foible of most women, good wives and good mothers, is to be monopolizers, in France especially, where woman is queen in her home, and her empire over her children is complete and unquestioned. France will never succeed in founding a Colonial Empire until boys cease to be brought up and remain under the influence of their mothers. The Roman Empire and the British Empire were made by men who had been brought up and lived under the influence of women, but who never allowed them to rule either as mothers or as wives.
The great qualities of a woman make her admirable, but I am not quite sure that it is not on account of her many little failings and foibles that she is loveable.
A boy is a boy—a genus article. When a man, he will very often develop qualities and defects which he never possessed as a child. With the gentler sex things are different. A little girl is a little woman, and, when a woman, she will possess, only more accentuated, all the qualities and defects that she possessed as a child of ten or twelve. I have known very good boys become very bad men, and very bad boys become splendid men. I have known young cowards become very brave soldiers. An affectionate little girl will be an affectionate woman; a little girl passionately fond of her dolls will be a beautiful mother; and a little flirt of ten will become a terrible flirt at twenty, and a terrible coquette at thirty.