Christina
of Sweden, alone among the crowned heads of Europe (so says Voltaire),
sustained the dignity of the throne against Richelieu and Mazarin. And
these queens most assuredly did not sacrifice their womanhood in the
process; for her Britannic Majesty's wardrobe included four thousand gowns;
and Mile, de Montpensier declares that when Christina had put on a wig of
the latest fashion, "she really looked extremely pretty."
_Les races se feminisent_, said Buffon,--"The world is growing more
feminine." It is a compliment, whether the naturalist intended it or not.
Time has brought peace; peace, invention; and the poorest woman of to-day
is born to an inheritance of which her ancestors never dreamed. Previous
attempts to confer on women social and political equality,--as when
Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, made them magistrates; or when the
Hungarian revolutionists made them voters; or when our own New Jersey
tried the same experiment in a guarded fashion in early times, and then
revoked the privilege, because (as in the ancient fable) the women
voted the wrong way;--these things were premature, and valuable only
as recognitions of a principle. But in view of the rapid changes now
going on, he is a rash man who asserts the "Woman Question" to be
anything but a mere question of time. The fulcrum has been already
given in the alphabet, and we must simply watch, and see whether the
earth does not move.
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