in the social state; the eternal fitness of things only made them move towards one common goal by assign. ing to them distinct and separate places. To take these modest beings, whose maidenly reserve gives a charm to the domestic circle, where all their lovable qualities expand to perfection; to place them among men and affairs; to expose them to the perils of a life which they cannot learn to support except by distorting their physical constitution; this is but to obliterate that exquisite sensibility which, so to speak, constitutes their essence and becomes the guarantee of their aptitude for the fulfillment of those private functions which a good social scheme has assigned to them. It is to confound everything; it is by vain prerogatives to flatter them into losing the sight of those advantages by which they might beautify their existence; it is to degrade them in our eyes and in their own; it is, in a word, to promise them Sovereignty and rob them of their empire.

M. Ostrogorski thus describes the progress and end of women's public activity in the French Revolu tion:

"The grotesque and somewhat dismal part played by woman under the Terror only too well justified the language of Mirabeau. Having flung themselves into the Revolution with an ardour and an enthusiasm not devoid of grandeur at the outset, they soon lost all balance, intellectual and moral. The Terrorists

themselves were disgusted in the end, if not by their excesses, at least by the habit into which they fell, of exciting the people, of remonstrating with the men in office, and of promoting disorder in the streets. On the 28th Brumaire, 1793, when a band of red-capped viragoes forced their way into the lobby of the Communal Council-chamber, Chaumette, the procureur général, apostrophized them in the severest terms. 'What shall these degraded beings, who have shaken off and violated Nature's laws, be suffered to enter a place entrusted to the guardianship of citizens? Since when have women beeu allowed to abjure their sex and turn themselves into men?' . . . The convention thereupon decreed the suppression of female clubs and societies, and subsequently prohibited any public assemblies of women.'

In 1830 a powerful agitation for "woman's rights" began, but soon failed. In 1848 the advocates of the change appeared in force; but their return to the conflict met with disaster.

In 1880, certain women in Paris went to the polls and asked to be registered. When the municipality refused, the applicants retorted by declining to pay taxes, "leaving to the men, who arrogate to them. selves the right to govern, to make laws, and to make up the budget, the privilege of paying those taxes which they vote and impose as they choose."

The Conseil de Prefecture threw out that plea by laying down in its judgment that "the obligation to pay taxes was in no way correlative to the enjoyment or the exercise of political rights; that the law of April 21, 1832, had determined that taxes had to be paid by every French inhabitant and by every foreigner of both sexes enjoying his rights; and that the words 'enjoying his rights' were only used in a special and restricted sense."

In 1885, women presented themselves and, being rejected, made an appeal to the Court of Cassation. Their claim was based upon a comprehensive nature of woman suffrage; based upon the ancient Latin formula, signifying "a reference in speech to the male sex is generally applied to both sexes." And, further, that the government proviso of March 8, 1848, had given so ample a meaning to the term "" universal suffrage" that it could not be intended to exclude women from it, when its exercise had even been conferred upon freed slaves.

The Court delivered a judgment containing the following:

"Whereas, in accordance with the terms of Article VII of the Civil Code the exercise of civil rights is independent of the qualification of citizen, which alone confers the exercise of political rights, and is only acquired in conformity with constitutional law; whereas if women enjoy civil rights in the mode de

termined by law, according to whether they are mar ried or single, no constitutional legal provision confers upon them the enjoyment, and, consequently, the exercise of political rights; whereas the enjoyment of these rights is a condition essential for enrollment on the electoral lists; whereas the constitution of November 4, 1848, in substituting 'universal' for 'partial' suffrage from which women were excluded, only intended to confer on citizens of the male sex who hitherto alone had been invested with such right, the right of electing representatives of the country to the several elective offices established by the Coustitutions and statutes, etc., etc.

"Women not being expressly named in electoral legislation which 'speaks of Français, not of Françaises, of citoyens, not of citoyennes' are co ipso debarred from the electoral franchise."

The orator of the Constituante, speaking on the subject, said that exclusion of woman from political power was one of the principles "preëxistent in the minds of all French people."

S

IV

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN ENGLAND

IR EDWARD COKE (1557-1633), the great authority of English jurisprudence, said: "In

many cases multitudes are bound by acts of Parliament which are not parties to the elections of knights, citizens or burgesses: as all they that have no freehold, or have freehold in antient demesne, and all women having freehold or no freehold."

The Chief Justice in 1739 said: "I do not know that it has ever been determined that women had not a right of voting, and whether they have not an ciently voted for members of Parliament, either by themselves or by attorney, is a great doubt.

"But the courts unanimously decided that women had no longer the right to vote if they had ever pos sessed it."

The French Revolution came near convulsing England, and—until it became a frenzy in France--its principles and spirit, like an infection, fevered many. William Goodwin, in "Political Justice," reproduced the ideas of Rousseau-perhaps carrying them beyond their original intent,-while his wife, Mary Wollstonecroft, wrote one of the strongest arguments