She affirms life against existence, values of the flesh against values of the spirit; she readily adopts Pascal's humorous attitude to male enterprises; she thinks as well, 'All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone'; she would gladly keep him shut up at home; all activity that does not directly benefit family life provokes her hostility; Bernard Palissy's wife is indignant when he burns the furniture to invent a new enamel without which the world had done very well until then; Mme Racine makes her husband take an interest in her red currants and refuses to read his tragedies.