There would be in a village within sight of Paris an asylum for unfortunate women, a house of refuge into which, under pain of the galleys, no man besides the doctor and the almoner should enter. A woman who wished to get a divorce would be bound, first of all, to go and place herself as prisoner in this asylum; there she would spend two years without going out once. She could write, but never receive an answer.
A council composed of peers of France and certain magistrates of repute would direct, in the woman's name, the proceedings for a divorce and would regulate the pension to be paid to the institution by the husband. A woman who failed in her plea before the courts would be allowed to spend the rest of her life in the asylum. The Government would compensate the administration of the asylum with a sum of two thousand francs for each woman who sought its refuge. To be received in the asylum, a woman must have had a dowry of over twenty thousand francs. The moral régime would be one of extreme severity.
After two years of complete seclusion from the world, a divorced woman could marry again.
Once arrived at this point, Parliament could consider whether, in order to infuse in girls a spirit of emulation, it would not be advisable to allow the sons a share of the paternal heritage double that of their sisters. The daughters who did not find husbands would have a share equal to that of the male children. It may be remarked, by the way, that this system would, little by little, destroy the only too inconvenient custom of marriages of convenience. The possibility of divorce would render useless such outrageous meanness.
At various points in France, and in certain poor villages, thirty abbeys for old maids should be established. The Government should endeavour to surround these establishments with consideration, in order to console a little the sorrows of the poor women who were to end their lives there. They should be given all the toys of dignity.
But enough of such chimeras!
[1] The author had read a chapter called "Dell' amore," in the Italian translation of the Idéologie of M. de Tracy[(51)]. In that chapter the reader will find ideas incomparable, in philosophical importance, with anything he can find here.
[2] Principes philosophiques du Colonel Weiss, 7 ed.,Vol. II. p. 245.
[3] I am fortunate to be able to describe in the words of another some extraordinary facts that I have had occasion to observe. Certainly, but for M. de Weiss, I shouldn't have related this glimpse of foreign customs. I have omitted others equally characteristic of Valencia and Vienna.
[4] The Examiner, an English paper, when giving a report of the Queen's case (No. 662, September 3rd, 1820), adds:—