To Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.
Here, my dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that are
screened from the action of the laws by the closed doors of
domestic life; but as to which the finger of God, often called
chance, supplies the place of human justice, and in which the
moral is none the less striking and instructive because it is
pointed by a scoffer.
To my mind, such deeds contain great lessons for the Family
and for Maternity. We shall some day realize, perhaps too
late, the effects produced by the diminution of paternal
authority. That authority, which formerly ceased only at the
death of the father, was the sole human tribunal before which
domestic crimes could be arraigned; kings themselves, on
special occasions, took part in executing its judgments.
However good and tender a mother may be, she cannot fulfil the
function of the patriarchal royalty any more than a woman can