CHAPTER IX.
_A CRISIS_.
One of the shrewdest and most subtle modern French writers has given his views of womankind in the following passage:-- "There are few women who have not found themselves, at least once in their lives, in regard to some incontestable fact, faced down by precise, keen, searching inquiry,--one of those questions pitilessly put by their husbands, the very idea of which gives a slight chill, and the first word of which enters the heart like a stroke of a dagger.

Hence comes the maxim, _Every woman lies_--obliging lies--venial lies--sublime lies--horrible lies--but always the obligation of lying.
"This obligation once admitted, must it not be a necessity to know how to lie well?
In France, the women lie admirably.

Our customs instruct them so well in imposture.

And woman is so naively impertinent, so pretty, so graceful, so true, in her lying! They so well understand its usefulness in social life for avoiding those violent shocks which would destroy happiness,--it is like the cotton in which they pack their jewelry.
"Lying is to them the very foundation of language, and truth is only the exception; they speak it, as they are virtuous, from caprice or for a purpose.

According to their character, some women laugh when they lie, and some cry; some become grave, and others get angry.
Having begun life by pretending perfect insensibility to that homage which flatters them most, they often finish by lying even to themselves.