If it happens [which God forbid!] that your wife enters a house
suspected by you, try to find out if the place has several exits.
Should your wife take a hack, what have you to fear? Is there not a
prefect of police, to whom all husbands ought to decree a crown of
solid gold, and has he not set up a little shed or bench where there
is a register, an incorruptible guardian of public morality? And does
he not know all the comings and goings of these Parisian gondolas?
One of the vital principles of our police will consist in always
following your wife to the furnishers of your house, if she is
accustomed to visit them. You will carefully find out whether there is
any intimacy between her and her draper, her dressmaker or her
milliner, etc. In this case you will apply the rules of the conjugal
Custom House, and draw your own conclusions.
If in your absence your wife, having gone out against your will, tells
you that she had been to such a place, to such a shop, go there
yourself the next day and try to find out whether she has spoken the
truth.
But passion will dictate to you, even better than the Meditation, the
various resources of conjugal tyranny, and we will here cut short
these tiresome instructions.
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