FRENCHWOMEN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 88, 31 March 1876, Page 4

FRENCHWOMEN.

The • movement: set on foot to form so wiogw parties ; among French ladies has failed? This might have been antioipated; such an institution is foreign to the -very, .natjjre',' of Frenchwomen. They lovV 'gossip, chat, scandal, to go ' to theatres, to promenade in the Bois, ,to kilt time, at the .pastrycooks' or talk chiffons' 'with thodisifs. As' a rule, everything in the Way of work that can bev : giv«n> -out is studiously given; home, Where it exists, is a castle of indolenlj^ where a lotus kind of life is led,,mi'ied wjrh the stimulant of some intrigue^ In.> this,/ respect, and , the. class of 'well-to-do society to .which these remarks'' apply, there is an im« mense amount, of valuable woman . power running to waste that might be appliedby forming some of those asßOeiationsfthat exißt in other countries to occupy ,the( hours i of the unoccupied; daughters-have never been ehown the example, and we cannot expect it from them Wjh^njthey become wives ; when girls, ttheirr r whole attention is directed to appear,^wholly ignorant of the world, and to remain the convent pupil until provided with a husband, and mothers take good care beforehand that the bond should contain no clause that would fetter the do-nothingness of their daughters when elevated to reign over ft home of their own.' This state of things . rtifty ) explain the very little happiness to be found in French marriages, ..and . .w^ire. .it not for the Mahoramedan kind 'of resignation both parties render to. their fate, and the little, resfifict. paid to them if they seek a separation, the institution of marriage would be seriously, compromised. ,To leave aabh? dffier free, so long as" no scandal can be reproached to either, jipd no act committea to publibly shook

the. proprieties of home, such is the rpaxim acted upon in French married life, and when separations cannot be . avoided, rest assured D^ante had no horror equal to what the dog and oat life must have been before 5 peace was declared to be impossible: These rereflections are. suggested by the demand of General Douay to be separated from his wife, the daughter of a .distinguished general; she had the habit to leave her h^>me for two or three days at a time, travelling from one end of the country to tbe other ; ehe left by a window, and entered through it by .means of a step-ladder, and when her husband reproached her she applied a horsewhip vigorously across his shoulders. — English Paper,