To the age of chivalry succeeded the revival of letters; and (strange to say!) this revival was any thing but advantageous to the cause of women. Men found other paths to glory than the exercise of valour afforded, and paths into which women were forbidden to follow them. Into these newly-discovered regions, women were not allowed to penetrate, and men returned thence with real or affected contempt for their unintellectual companions, without having attained true wisdom enough to know how much they would gain by their enlightenment.
The advance of intelligence in men not being met by a corresponding advance in women, the latter lost their equilibrium in the social balance. Honour, glory, were no longer attached to the smile of beauty. The dethroned sovereigns, from being imperious, became abject, and sought, by paltry arts, to perpetuate the empire which was no longer conceded as a right. Influence they still possessed, but an influence debased in its character, and changed in its mode of operation. Instead of being the objects of devotion of heart,--fantastic, indeed, but high-minded,--they became the mere playthings of the imagination, or worse, the mere objects of sensual passion. Respect is the only sure foundation of influence. Women had ceased to be respected: they therefore ceased to be beneficially influential. That they retained another and a worse kind of influence, may be inferred from the spirit, as imbodied in the literature, of the period. Fiction no longer sought its heroes among the lofty in mind and pure in morals--its heroines in spotless virgins and faithful wives. The reckless voluptuary, the faithless and successful adulteress,--these were the noble beings whose deeds filled the pages which formed the delight of the wise and the fair. The ultimate issues of these grievous errors were most strikingly developed in the respective courts of Louis XIV. and Charles II., where they reached their climax. The vicious influence of which we have spoken was then at its height, and the degradation of women had brought on its inevitable consequence, the degradation of men. With some few exceptions, (such exceptions, indeed, prove rules!) we trace this evil influence in the contempt of virtue, public and private; in the base passions, the narrow and selfish views peculiar to degraded women, and reflected on the equally degraded men whom such women could have power to charm.[107]