Monday, 20 December 1880

This Schaeppi is mad; she asks my permission to paint my head on a Deck plate. I refused as nicely as possible.
This evening, a lecture at the Salle Petrelle (Faubourg Poissonniere), one hundred fifty people at most. I was on the platform beside the president. I enjoyed myself. The program listed four speakers: Citizen Lanne, with an atrocious accent, said such sensible things that she was heartily applauded. "You do not want to educate and emancipate us because you believe we shall desert the conjugal hearth, that we shall no longer mend your socks! Rest assured, we shall make the soup and we shall mend your socks, but when he returns home, the man will find a woman capable of understanding him!"
I was there; I did not miss a word. They said only reasonable things, almost reactionary — yet when the newspapers report on these lectures, they speak of "lucubrations," of ridiculous follies.
O good faith! O how right Romulus was to raise a temple to Good Faith!
O prejudice! O routine! O sneaky, stupid mockery!

Notes

Theodore Deck (1823-1891), famous French ceramicist known for his artistic earthenware.