“Well,” observed Sibyl rather philosophically, “there is, I think, more independence and individuality in the American woman’s manner of putting on her clothes. The French woman—forgive me, Baronne—accepts her frock just as it comes from the dressmaker, and looks more or less as though she has just stepped out of a bandbox. But the American knows better what suits her in the first place, and in putting on her clothes adapts them, by a judicious touch here and there, to her own particular style and taste.”
“I thoroughly agree,” observed the Baronne. “We have been actually beaten on our own ground by the Americans. It is curious, but nevertheless true, that we French women are being left behind in the mode, as we have been left behind in the laws. Here, in France, we are twenty years or so behind the age in regard to the laws affecting women.”
“I don’t understand,” observed Sibyl.
“Well, in brief, our modern intellectual young man in Paris is all for woman’s rights. In England you have long been aware that to educate and gradually emancipate the women-folk is one of the most important points in modern progress; but though the Feministe movement in France has been actively pushed by a small minority during the last few years, we in Paris have only just heard of your so-called New Woman.”
“And do you believe, Baronne, that the movement will progress?” I inquired.
“Ah! it is difficult to say, m’sieur,” she answered, with a slight shrug of her well-formed shoulders. “When the reformers’ ideal has once been placed in the category of practical politics it will probably be accorded a welcome and given a deferential attention which has scarcely been vouchsafed to it on your side of the Pas de Calais. At present, as you know, a married woman in France has no right to her own earnings. They belong to the husband. A man can actually imprison his wife for two years if discovered with a lover; while a woman who has been wronged is not allowed the recherche de la paternité. In short, you English respect your womenkind, and are a free and enlightened people in comparison with us. Here, ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,’ are words which apply solely to the masculine sex.”
We both laughed, but the Baronne was quite serious, and from her subsequent observations it was patent that I had accidentally touched upon one of her pet subjects. To confess the truth, I became rather bored by her violent arguments in favour of the emancipation of women, for when a voluble Frenchwoman argues, it is difficult to get in a word edgewise.
Presently she exclaimed:
“A couple of days ago I had a visit from an old friend who inquired whether I knew you—the Comtesse de Foville. She has left Paris.”
“Yes,” I said, “I think she has. Her visit has been only a brief one. They have gone for their cure at Marienbad, I believe.”