XXI

The Comedy of Contrariness

Probity in love, Marquis? How can you think of such a thing? Ah, you are like a drowned man. I shall take good care not to show your letter to any one, it would dishonor you. You do not know how to undertake the manoeuvres I have advised you to make, you say? Your candor, your high sentiments made your fortune formerly! Well, love was then treated like an affair of honor, but nowadays, the corruption of the age has changed all that; love is now nothing more than a play of the humor and of vanity.

Your inexperience still leaves your virtues in an inflexible condition that will inevitably cause your ruin, if you have not enough intelligence to bring them into accord with the morals of the times. One can not now wear his sentiments on his sleeve. Everything is show; payment is made in airs, demonstrations, signs. Everybody is playing a comedy, and men have had excellent reasons for keeping up the farce. They have discovered the fact that nobody can gain anything by telling the actual truth about women. There is a general agreement to substitute for this sincerity a collection of contrary phrases. And this custom has proved contagious in cases of gallantry.

In spite of your high principles, you will agree with me, that unless that custom, called "politeness," is not pushed so far as irony or treason, it is a sociable virtue to follow, and of all the relations among men, the true meaning of gallantry has more need of being concealed than that of any other social affair. How many occasions do you not find where a lover gains more by dissimulating the excess of his passion, than another who pretends to have more than he really has?

I think I understand the Countess; she is more skillful than you. I am certain she dissimulates her affection for you with greater care than you take to multiply proofs of yours for her. I repeat; the less you expose yourself, the better you will be treated. Let her worry in her turn; inspire her with the fear that she will lose you, and see her come around. It is the surest way of finding out the true position you occupy in her heart. Adieu.



XXII

Vanity and Self-Esteem Obstacles to Love

A silence of ten days, Marquis. You begin to worry me in earnest. The application you made of my counsel has, then, been successful? I congratulate you. What I do not approve, however, is your dissatisfaction with her for refusing to make the confession you desired. The words: "I love you" seem to be something precious in your estimation. For fifteen days you have been trying to penetrate the sentiments of the Countess, and you have succeeded; you know her affection for you. What more can you possibly want? What further right over her heart would a confession give you? Truly, I consider you a strange character. You ought to know that nothing is more calculated to cause a reasonable woman to revolt, than the obstinacy with which ordinary men insist upon a declaration of their love. I fail to understand you. Ought not her refusal to be a thousand times more precious to a delicate minded lover than a positive declaration? Will you ever know your real interests? Instead of persecuting a woman on such a point, expend your energies in concealing from her the extent of her affection. Act so that she will love you before you call her attention to the fact, before compelling her to resort to the necessity of proclaiming it. Is it possible to experience a situation more delicious than that of seeing a heart interested in you without suspicion, growing toward you by degrees, finally becoming affectionate? What a pleasure to enjoy secretly all her movements, to direct her sentiments, augment them, hasten them, and glory in the victory even before she has suspected that you have essayed her defeat! That is what I call pleasure.

Believe me, Marquis, your conduct toward the Countess must be as if the open avowal of her love for you had escaped her. Of a truth, she has not said in words: "I love you," but it is because she really loves you that she has refrained from saying it. Otherwise she has done everything to convince you of it.

Women are under no ordinary embarrassment. They desire for the very least, as much to confess their affection as you are anxious to ascertain it, but what do you expect, Marquis? Women ingenious at raising obstacles, have attached a certain shame to any avowal of their passion, and whatever idea you men may have formed of our way of thinking, such an avowal always humiliates us, for however small may be our experience, we comprehend all the consequences. The words "I love you" are not criminal, that is true, but their sequel frightens us, hence we find means to dissimulate, and close our eyes to the liabilities they carry with them.

Besides this, be on your guard; your persistence in requiring an open avowal from the Countess, is less the work of love than a persevering vanity. I defy you to find a mistake in the true motives behind your insistence. Nature has given woman a wonderful instinct; it enables her to discern without mistake whatever grows out of a passion in one who is a stranger to her. Always indulgent toward the effects produced by a love we have inspired, we will pardon you many imprudences, many transports; how can I enumerate them all? All the follies of which you lovers are capable, we pardon, but you will always find us intractable when our self-esteem meets your own. Who would believe it? You inspire us to revolt at things that have nothing to do with your happiness. Your vanity sticks at trifles, and prevents you from enjoying actual advantages. Will you believe me when I say it? You will drop your idle fancies, to delight in the certainty that you are beloved by an adorable woman; to taste the pleasure of hiding the extent of her love from herself, to rejoice in its security. Suppose by force of importunities you should extract an "I love you," what would you gain by it? Would your uncertainty reach an end? Would you know whether you owe the avowal to love or complaisance? I think I know women, I ought to. They can deceive you by a studied confession which the lips only pronounce, but you will never be the involuntary witness of a passion you force from them. The true, flattering avowals we make, are not those we utter, but those that escape us without our knowledge.



XXIII

Two Irreconcilable Passions in Women

Will you pardon me, Marquis, for laughing at your afflictions? You take things too much to heart. Some imprudences, you say, have drawn upon you the anger of the Countess, and your anxiety is extreme. You kissed her hand with an ecstasy that attracted the attention of everybody present. She publicly reprimanded you for your indiscretion, and your marked preference for her, always offensive to other women, has exposed you to the railleries of the Marquise, her sister-in-law. Dear me, these are without contradiction terrible calamities! What, are you simple enough to believe that you are lost beyond salvation because of an outward manifestation of anger, and you do not even suspect that inwardly you are justified? You impose upon me the burden of convincing you of the fact, and in doing so I am forced to reveal some strange mysteries concerning women. But, I do not intend, in writing you, to be always apologizing for my sex. I owe you frankness, however, and having promised it I acquit myself of the promise.

A woman is always balancing between two irreconcilable passions which continually agitate her mind: the desire to please, and the fear of dishonor. You can judge of our embarrassment. On the one hand, we are consumed with the desire to have an audience to notice the effect of our charms. Ever engaged in schemes to bring us into notoriety; ravished whenever we are fortunate enough to humiliate other women, we would make the whole world witness of the preferences we encounter, and the homage bestowed upon us. Do you know the measure of our satisfaction in such cases? The despair of our rivals, the indiscretions that betray the sentiments we inspire, this enchants us proportionately to the misery they suffer. Similar imprudences persuade us much more that we are loved, than that our charms are incapable of giving us a reputation.

But what bitterness poisons such sweet pleasures! Beside so many advantages marches the malignity of rival competitors, and sometimes your disdain. A fatality which is mournful. The world makes no distinction between women who permit you to love them, and those whom you compensate for so doing. Uninfluenced, and sober-minded, a reasonable woman always prefers a good reputation to celebrity. Put her beside her rivals who contest with her the prize for beauty, and though she may lose that reputation of which she appears so jealous, though she compromise herself a thousand times, nothing is equal in her opinion to see herself preferred to others. By and by, she will recompense you by preferences; she will at first fancy that she grants them out of gratitude, but they will be proofs of her attachment. In her fear of appearing ungrateful, she becomes tender.

Can you not draw from this that it is not your indiscretions which vex us? If they wound us, we must pay tribute to appearances, and you would be the first to censure an excessive indulgence.

See that you do not misunderstand us. Not to vex us on such occasions would be really to offend. We recommend you to practice discretion and prudence, that is the role we enact, is it not? Is it necessary for me to tell you the part you are to play? I am often reminded that accepting the letter of the law, is to fail to understand it. You may be sure that you will be in accord with our intentions as soon as you are able to interpret them properly.



XXIV

An Abuse of Credulity Is Intolerable

The Countess no longer retreats? You think she has no other object in view than to put your love to the proof? Whatever preference you have manifested for her; however little precaution you have taken to testify to your passion, she finds nothing in you but cause for scolding. The least excuse, however, and the reproaches die upon her lips, and her anger is so delightful that you do everything to deserve it. Permit me to share in your joy with all my heart. But although this behavior flatters you, if you consider that such acts are not intended to be of long duration, how badly reasonable women, who value their reputation, misunderstand their true interests by thus multiplying through an affected incredulity, occasions for slandering them. Do they not understand and feel that it is not always the moment when they are tender which gives a blow to their reputation? The doubt they cast upon the sincerity of the affection they have inspired, does them more harm in the eyes of the world than even their defeat. As long as they continue incredulous the slightest imprudence compromises them. They dispose of their reputation at retail.

Whenever a lover finds a woman incredulous of the truth of his sentiments, he goes full lengths, every time he has an opportunity, to furnish proofs of his sincerity. The most indiscreet eagerness, the most marked preferences, the most assiduous attentions, seem to him the best means of succeeding. Can he make use of them without calling the attention of the whole world to the fact; without offending every other woman and giving them occasions to be revenged by their sharpest arrows?

As soon as the preliminaries are settled, that is to say, as soon as we commence to believe ourselves sincerely loved, nothing appears on the surface, nothing happens; and if outsiders perceive our liaison, if they put a malicious construction upon it, it will only be by the recollection of what passed during a time when love was not in question.

I would, for the good of everybody concerned, that as soon as a woman ceases to find any pleasure in the society of a man who wishes to please her, that she could tell him so clearly and dismiss him, without abusing his credulity, or giving him ground for vain hopes. But I would also, that as soon as a woman is persuaded that a man loves her, she could consent to it in good faith, reserving to herself, however, the right to be further entreated, to such a point as she may deem apropos, before making an avowal that she feels as tenderly disposed toward her lover, as he is toward her. For, a woman can not pretend to doubt without putting her lover to the necessity of dissipating her doubts, and he can not do that successfully without taking the whole world into his confidence by a too marked homage.

I know very well that these ideas would not have been probable in times when the ignorance of men rendered so many women intractable, but, in these times when the audacity of our assailants leaves us so few resources, in these times, I say, when, since the invention of powder, there are few impregnable places, why undertake a prolonged formal siege, when it is certain that after much labor and many disasters it will be necessary to capitulate?

Bring your amiable Countess to reason; show her the inconveniences of a prolonged disregard of your sentiments. You will convince her of your passion, you will compel her to believe you through regard for her reputation, and still better, perhaps, you will furnish her with an additional reason for giving you a confidence she doubtless now finds it difficult to withhold from you.



XXV

Why Virtue Is So Often Overcome

My last letter has apparently scandalized you, Marquis. You insist that it is not impossible to find virtuous women in our age of the world. Well, have I ever said anything to the contrary? Comparing women to besieged castles, have I ever advanced the idea that there were some that had not been taken? How could I have said such a thing? There are some that have never been besieged, so you perceive that I am of your opinion. I will explain, however, so that there will be no more chicanery about the question.

Here is my profession of faith in this matter: I firmly believe that there are good women who have never been attacked, or who have been wrongly attacked.

I further firmly believe that there are good women who have been attacked and well attacked, when they have had neither disposition, violent passions, liberty, nor a hated husband.

I have a mind at this point to put you in possession of a rather lively conversation on this particular point, while I was still very young, with a prude, whom an adventure of some brilliancy unmasked. I was inexperienced then, and I was in the habit of judging others with that severity which every one is disposed to manifest until some personal fault has made us more indulgent toward our neighbors. I had considered it proper to blame the conduct of this woman without mercy. She heard of it. I sometimes saw her at an aunt's, and made preparations to attack her morals. Before I had an opportunity she took the matter into her own hands, by taking me aside one day, and compelled me to submit to the following harangue, which I confess made a deep impression in my memory:

"It is not for the purpose of reproaching you for the talk you have been making on my account, that I wish to converse with you in the absence of witnesses," she explained, "it is to give you some advice, the truth and solidity of which you will one day appreciate.

"You have seen fit to censure my conduct with a severity, you have actually treated me with a disdain, which tells me how proud you are of the fact that you have never been taken advantage of. You believe in your own virtue and that it will never abandon you. This is a pure illusion of your amour propre, my dear child, and I feel impelled to enlighten your inexperience, and to make you understand, that far from being sure of that virtue which renders you so severe, you are not even sure that you have any at all. This prologue astonishes you, eh? Well, listen with attention, and you will soon be convinced of the truth whereof I speak.

"Up to the present time, nobody has ever spoken to you of love. Your mirror alone has told you that you are beautiful. Your heart, I can see by the appearance of indifference that envelops you like a mantle, has not yet been developed. As long as you remain as you are, as long as you can be kept in sight as you are, I will be your guarantee. But when your heart has spoken, when your enchanting eyes shall have received life and expression from sentiment, when they shall speak the language of love, when an internal unrest shall agitate your breast, when, in fine, desire, half stifled by the scruples of a good education, shall have made you blush more than once in secret, then your sensibility, through the combats by which you will attempt to vanquish it, will diminish your severity toward others, and their faults will appear more excusable.

"The knowledge of your weakness will no longer permit you to regard your virtue as infallible. Your astonishment will carry you still farther. The little help it will be to you against too impetuous inclinations, will make you doubt whether you ever had any virtue. Can you say a man is brave before he has ever fought? It is the same with us. The attacks made upon us are alone the parents of our virtue, as danger gives birth to valor. As long as one has not been in the presence of the enemy, it is impossible to say whether he is to be feared, and what degree of resistance it will be necessary to bear against him.

"Hence to justify a woman in flattering herself that she is essentially virtuous and good by force of her own strength, she must be in a position where no danger, however great it may be, no motive no matter how pressing, no pretext whatever, shall be powerful enough to triumph over her. She must meet with the most favorable opportunities, the most tender love, the certainty of secrecy, the esteem and the most perfect confidence in him who attacks her. In a word, all these circumstances combined should not be able to make an impression upon her courage, so that to know whether a woman be virtuous in the true meaning of the word, one must imagine her as having escaped unscathed all these united dangers, for it would not be virtue but only resistance where there should be love without the disposition, or disposition without the occasion. Her virtue would always be uncertain, as long as she had never been attacked by all the weapons which might vanquish her. One might always say of her: if she had been possessed of a different constitution, she might not have resisted love, or, if a favorable occasion had presented itself, her virtue would have played the fool."

"According to this," said I, "it would be impossible to find a single virtuous woman, for no one has ever had so many enemies to combat."

"That may be," she replied, "but do you know the reason? Because it is not necessary to have so many to overcome us, one alone is sufficient to obtain the victory."

But I stuck to my proposition: "You pretend then that our virtue does not depend upon ourselves, since you make it the puppet of occasion, and of other causes foreign to our own will?"

"There is no doubt about it," she answered. "Answer me this: Can you give yourself a lively or sedate disposition? Are you free to defend yourself against a violent passion? Does it depend upon you to arrange all the circumstances of your life, so that you will never find yourself alone with a lover who adores you, who knows his advantages and how to profit by them? Does it depend upon you to prevent his pleadings, I assume them to be innocent at first, from making upon your senses the impression they must necessarily make? Certainly not; to insist upon such an anomaly would be to deny that the magnet is master of the needle. And you pretend that your virtue is your own work, that you can personally claim the glory of an advantage that is liable to be taken from you at any moment? Virtue in women, like all the other blessings we enjoy, is a gift from Heaven; it is a favor which Heaven may refuse to grant us. Reflect then how unreasonable you are in glorifying in your virtue: consider your injustice when you so cruelly abuse those who have had the misfortune to be born with an ungovernable inclination toward love, whom a sudden violent passion has surprised, or who have found themselves in the midst of circumstances out of which you would not have emerged with any greater glory.

"Shall I give you another proof of the justice of my ideas? I will take it from your own conduct. Are you not dominated by that deep persuasion that every woman who wishes to preserve her virtue, need never allow herself to be caught, that she must watch over the smallest trifles, because they lead to things of greater importance? It is much easier for you to take from men the desire to make an attack upon your virtue by assuming a severe exterior, than to defend against their attacks. The proof of this is in the fact that we give young girls in their education as little liberty as is possible in order to restrain them. We do more: a prudent mother does not rely upon her fear of dishonor, nor upon the bad opinion she has of men, she keeps her daughter out of sight; she puts it out of her power to succumb to temptation. What is the excuse for so many precautions? Because the mother fears the frailty of her pupil, if she is exposed for an instant to danger.

"In spite of all these obstacles with which she is curbed, how often does it not happen that love overcomes them all? A girl well trained, or better, well guarded, laughs at her virtue, because she imagines it is all her own, whereas, it is generally a slave rigorously chained down, who thinks everybody is satisfied with him as long as he does not run away. Let us inquire further into this: In what class do you find abandoned females? In that where they have not sufficient wealth or happiness constantly to provide themselves with the obstacles which have saved you; in that, where men have attacked their virtue with more audacity, more facility, more frequency, and more impunity, and consequently with more advantages of every sort; in that, where the impressions of education, of example, of pride, the desire of a satisfactory establishment could not sustain them. Two doors below, there is a woman whom you hate and despise. And in spite of the outside aid which sustains that virtue, of which you are so proud, in two days you might be more despicable than she, because you will have had greater helps to guarantee you against misfortune. I am not seeking to deprive you of the merit of your virtue, nor am I endeavoring to prevent you from attaching too much importance to it; by convincing you of its fragility, I wish to obtain from you only a trifle of indulgence for those whom a too impetuous inclination, or the misfortunes of circumstances have precipitated into a position so humiliating in their own eyes; my sole object is to make you understand that you ought to glorify yourself less in the possession of an advantage which you do not owe to yourself, and of which you may be deprived to-morrow."

She was going to continue, but some one interrupted us. Soon afterward, I learned by my own experience that I should not have had so good an opinion of many virtues which had been formerly imposed upon me, beginning with my own.



XXVI

Love Demands Freedom of Action

I have been of the same opinion as you, Marquis, although the ideas I communicated to you yesterday appeared to be true speculatively, that it would be dangerous if all women were to be guided by them. It is not by a knowledge of their frailty, that women will remain virtuous, but by the conviction that they are free and mistresses of themselves when it comes to yield or to resist. Is it by persuading a soldier that he will be vanquished that he is goaded into fighting with courage? Did you not notice that the woman who did the talking as I have related in my last letter, had a personal interest in maintaining her system? It is true, that when we examine her reasoning according to the rules of philosophy, it does seem to be a trifle specious, but it is to be feared that in permitting ourselves to reason in that fashion on what virtue is, we may succeed in converting into a problem, the rules we should receive and observe as a law, which it is a crime to construe. Moreover, to persuade women that it is not to themselves they are indebted for the virtue they possess, might it mot deprive them of the most powerful motive to induce them to preserve it? I mean by that, the persuasion that it is their own work they defend. The consequences of such morality would be discouraging, and tend to diminish, in the eyes of a guilty woman, the importance of her errors. But let us turn to matters of more interest to you.

At last, after so many uncertainties, after so many revolutions in your imagination, you are sure you are loved? You have finally succeeded in exciting the Countess to divulge her secret during a moment of tenderness. The words you burned to hear have been pronounced. More, she has allowed to escape her, a thousand involuntary proofs of the passion you have inspired. Far from diminishing your love, the certainty that you are beloved in return has increased it; in a word, you are the happiest of men. If you knew with how much pleasure I share your happiness you would be still happier. The first sacrifice she desired to make was to refuse to receive the Chevalier: you were opposed to her making it, and you were quite right. It would have compromised the Countess for nothing, which calls to my mind the fact, that women generally lose more by imprudence than by actual faults. The confidence you so nobly manifested in her, ought to have greatly impressed her.

Everything is now as it should be. However, shall I tell you something? The way this matter has turned out alarms me. We agreed, if you remember, that we were to treat the subject of love without gloves. You were not to have at the most but a light and fleeting taste of it, and not a regulated passion. Now I perceive that things become more serious every day. You are beginning to treat love with a dignity which worries me. The knowledge of true merits, solid qualities, and good character is creeping into the motives of your liaison, and combining with the personal charms which render you so blindly amorous. I do not like to have so much esteem mixed with an affair of pure gallantry. It leaves no freedom of action, it is work instead of amusement. I was afraid in the beginning that your relations would assume a grave and measured turn. But perhaps you will only too soon have new pretensions, and the Countess by new disputes will doubtless re-animate your liaison. Too constant a peace is productive of a deadly ennui. Uniformity kills love, for as soon as the spirit of method mingles in an affair of the heart, the passion disappears, languor supervenes, weariness begins to wear, and disgust ends the chapter.



XXVII

The Heart Needs Constant Employment

Madame de Sevigne does not agree with me upon the causes of love as I give them. She pretends that many women know it only from its refined side, and that the senses never count for anything in their heart affairs. According to her, although what she calls my "system" should be well founded, it would always be unbecoming in the mouth of a woman, and might become a precedent in morals.

These are assuredly very serious exceptions, Marquis, but are they well grounded? I do not think so. I see with pain that Madame de Sevigne has not read my letters in the spirit I wrote them. What, I the founder of systems? Truly, she does me too much honor, I have never been serious enough to devise any system. Besides, according to my notion, a system is nothing but a philosophic dream, and therefore does she consider all I have told you as a play of the imagination? In that case, we are very far out of our reckoning. I do not imagine, I depict real objects. I would have one truth acknowledged, and to accomplish that, my purpose is not to surprise the mind; I consult the sentiments. Perhaps she has been struck by the singularity of some of my propositions, which appeared to me so evident that I did not think it worth while to maintain them; but is it necessary to make use of a mariner's compass to develop the greater or less amount of truth in a maxim of gallantry?

Moreover, I have such a horror of formal discussions, that I would prefer to agree to anything rather than engage in them. Madame de Sevigne, you say, is acquainted with a number of female metaphysicians—there! there! I will grant her these exceptions, provided she leaves me the general thesis. I will even admit, if you so desire, that there are certain souls usually styled "privileged," for I have never heard anybody deny the virtues of temperament. So, I have nothing to say about women of that species. I do not criticise them, nor have I any reproaches to make them; neither do I believe it my duty to praise them, it is sufficient to congratulate them. However, if you investigate them you will discover the truth of what I have been saying since the commencement of our correspondence: the heart must be occupied with some object. If nature does not incline them in that direction, no one can lead them in the direction of gallantry, their affection merely changes its object. Such a one to-day appears to be insensible to the emotion of love, only because she has disposed of all that portion of the sentiment she had to give. The Count de Lude, it is said, was not always indifferent to Madame de Sevigne. Her extreme tenderness for Madame Grignan (her daughter), however, occupies her entire time at present. According to her, I am very much at fault concerning women? In all charity I should have disguised the defects which I have discovered in my sex, or, if you prefer to have it that way, which my sex have discovered in me.

But, do you really believe, Marquis, that if everything I have said on this subject be made public, the women would be offended? Know them better, Marquis; all of them would find there what is their due. Indeed, to tell them that it is purely a mechanical instinct which inclines them to flirt, would not that put them at their ease? Does it not seem to be restoring to favor that fatality, those expressions of sympathy, which they are so delighted to give as excuses for their mistakes, and in which I have so little faith? Granting that love is the result of reflection, do you not see what a blow you are giving their vanity? You place upon their shoulders the responsibility far their good or bad choice.

One more thrust, Marquis: I am not mistaken when I say that all women would be satisfied with my letters. The female metaphysicians, that is, those women whom Heaven has favored with a fortunate constitution, would take pleasure in recognizing in them their superiority over other women; they would not fail to congratulate themselves upon the delicacy of their own sentiments, and to consider them as works of their own creation. Those whom nature built of less refined material, would without doubt owe me some gratitude for revealing a secret which was weighing upon them. They have made it a duty to disguise their inclinations, and they are as anxious not to fail in this duty as they are careful not to lose anything on the pleasure side of the question. Their interest, therefore, is, to have their secret guessed without being compromised. Whoever shall develop their hearts, will not fail to render them an essential service. I am even fully convinced that those women, who at heart, profess sentiments more comformable to mine, would be the first to consider it an honor to dispute them. Hence, I would be paying my court to women in two fashions, which would be equally agreeable: In adopting the maxims which flatter their inclinations, and in furnishing them with an occasion to appear refined.

After all, Marquis, do you think it would betray a deep knowledge of women, to believe that they could be offended with the malicious talk I have been giving you about them? Somebody said a long time ago, that women would rather have a little evil said of them than not be talked about at all You see therefore, that even supposing that I have written you in the intention with which I am charged, they would be very far from being able to reproach me in the slightest degree.

Finally, Madame de Sevigne pretends that my "system" might become a precedent. Truly, Marquis, I do not understand how, with the justice for which she is noted, she was able to surrender to such an idea. In stripping love, as I have, of everything liable to seduce you, in making it out to be the effect of temperament, caprice, and vanity; in a word, in undeceiving you concerning the metaphysics that lend it grandeur and nobility, is it not evident that I have rendered it less dangerous? Would it not be more dangerous, if, as pretends Madame de Sevigne, it were to be transformed into a virtue? I would willingly compare my sentiments with those of the celebrated legislator of antiquity, who believed the best means of weakening the power of women over his fellow citizens was to expose their nakedness. But I wish to make one more effort in your favor. Since I am regarded as a woman with a system, it will be better for me to submit to whatever such a fine title exacts. Let us reason, therefore, for a moment upon gallantry according to the method which appertains only to serious matters.

Is love not a passion? Do not very strict minded people pretend that the passions and vices mean the same things? Is vice ever more seductive than when it wears the cloak of virtue? Wherefore in order to corrupt virtuous souls it is sufficient for it to appear in a potential form. This is the form in which the Platonicians deified it. In all ages, in order to justify the passions, it was necessary to apotheosize them. What am I saying? Am I so bold as to play the iconoclast with an accredited superstition? What temerity! Do I not deserve to be persecuted by all women for attacking their favorite cult?

I am sorry for them; it was so lovely, when they felt the movements of love, to be exempt from blushing, to be able even to congratulate themselves, and lay the blame upon the operations of a god. But what had poor humanity done to them? Why misunderstand it and seek for the cause of its weakness in the Heavens? Let us remain on earth, we shall find it there, and it is its proper home.

In truth, I have never in my letters openly declaimed against love; I have never advised you not to take the blame of it. I was too well persuaded of the uselessness of such advice; but I told you what love is, and I therefore diminished the illusion it would not have failed to create in your mind; I weakened its power over you and experience will justify me.

I am perfectly well aware that a very different use is made of it in the education of females. And what sort of profit is there in the methods employed? The very first step is to deceive them. Their teachers strive to inspire them with as much fear of love as of evil spirits. Men are depicted as monsters of infidelity and perfidy. Now suppose a gentleman appears who expresses delicate sentiments, whose bearing is modest and respectful? The young woman with whom he converses will believe she has been imposed upon; and as soon as she discovers how much exaggeration there has been, her advisers will lose all credit so far as she is concerned. Interrogate such a young woman, and if she is sincere, you will find that the sentiments the alleged monster has excited in her heart are far from being the sentiments of horror.

They are deceived in another manner also, and the misery of it is, it is almost impossible to avoid it. Infinite care is taken to keep from them the knowledge, to prevent them from having even an idea that they are liable to be attacked by the senses, and that such attacks are the most dangerous of all for them. They are drilled in the idea that they are immaculate spirits, and what happens then? Inasmuch as they have never been forewarned of the species of attacks they must encounter, they are left without defense. They have never mistrusted that their most redoubtable enemy is the one that has never been mentioned: how then can they be on their guard against him? It is not men they should be taught to fear, but themselves? What could a lover do, if the woman he attacks were not seduced by her own desires?

So, Marquis, when I say to women that the principal cause of their weaknesses is physical, I am far from advising them to follow their inclinations; on the contrary, it is for the purpose of putting them on their guard in that respect. It is saying to the Governor of the citadel, that he will not be attacked at the spot which up to then has been the best fortified; that the most redoubtable assault will not be made by the besiegers, but that he will be betrayed by his own.

In a word, in reducing to their just value, the sentiments to which women attach such high and noble ideas; in enlightening them upon the real object of a lover who pretends to great delicacy and refinement, do you not see that I am interesting their vanity to draw less glory out of the fact of being loved, and their hearts to take less pleasure in loving? Depend upon it, that if it were possible to enlist their vanity in opposition to their inclination to gallantry, their virtue would most assuredly suffer very little.

I have had lovers, but none of them deceived me by any illusions. I could penetrate their motives astonishingly well. I was always persuaded that if whatever was of value from the standpoint of intellect and character, was considered as anything among the reasons that led them to love me, it was only because those qualities stimulated their vanity. They were amorous of me, because I had a beautiful figure, and they possessed the desire. So it came about that they never obtained more than the second place in my heart. I have always conserved for friendship the deference, the constancy, and the respect even, which a sentiment so noble, so worthy deserves in an elevated soul. It has never been possible for me to overcome my distrust for hearts in which love was the principal actor. This weakness degraded them in my eyes; I considered them incompetent to raise their mind up to sentiments of true esteem for a woman for whom they have felt a desire.

You see, therefore, Marquis, that the precedent I draw from my principles is far from being dangerous. All that enlightened minds can find with which to reproach me, will be, perhaps, because I have taken the trouble to demonstrate a truth which they do not consider problematic. But does not your inexperience and your curiosity justify whatever I have written so far, and whatever I may yet write you on this subject?



XXVIII

Mere Beauty Is Often of Trifling Importance

You are not mistaken, Marquis, the taste and talent of the Countess for the clavecin (piano) will tend to increase your love and happiness. I have always said that women do not fully realize the advantages they might draw from their talents; indeed, there is not a moment when they are not of supreme utility; most women always calculating on the presence of a beloved object as the only thing to be feared. In such case they have two enemies to combat; their love and their lover. But when the lover departs, love remains; and although the progress it makes in solitude is not so rapid, it is no less dangerous. It is then that the execution of a sonata, the sketching of a flower, the reading of a good book, will distract the attention from a too seductive remembrance, and fix the mind on something useful. All occupations which employ the mind are so many thefts from love.

Suppose his inclination brings a lover to our knees, what can he accomplish with a woman who is only tender and pretty? With what can he employ his time if he does not find in her society something agreeable, some variety? Love is an active sentiment, it is a consuming fire always demanding additional fuel, and if it can find only sensible objects upon which to feed, it will keep to that diet. I mean to say, that when the mind is not occupied the senses find something to do.

There are too many gesticulations while talking, sometimes I think we shall be compelled to use sign language with a person we know to be unable to understand a more refined language. It is not in resisting advances, nor in taking offense at too bold a caress that a woman is enabled to maintain her virtue. When she is attacked in that fashion, even while defending herself, her senses are excited and the very agitation which impels her to resist, hastens her defeat. But it is by distracting the attention of the man to other objects, that the woman is relieved of the necessity of resisting his advances, or taking offense at his liberties to which she herself has opened the way, for there is one thing certain, which is, that a man will never disappoint a woman who is anxious for him.

You will not find a single woman, unless you can suppose one absolutely ignorant, who is not able to gauge exactly the degree of familiarity she ought to permit. Those who complain that their lovers do not come up to the mark do not affect me in the least. Inquire into the reason, and you will perceive that their stupidities, their imprudences are the cause. It was their desire to be found wanting.

Defect in culture may expose us to the same inconveniences, for with a woman without mind, and without talents what else is there to do but undertake her conquest? When in her company, the only way to kill time is to annoy her. There is nothing to talk about but her beauty, and of the impression she has made upon the senses, and sensual language is the only one that can be employed for that purpose. She herself is not convinced that you love her, and she does not respond, she does not recompense you but by the assistance of the senses, and exhibits an agitation equal to yours, or else, her decency gone, she has nothing but bad humor with which to oppose you. This is the last ditch of a woman without mind, and what a culmination! On the contrary, what are not the advantages of an intelligent, resourceful woman? A lively repartee, piquant raillery, a quarrel seasoned with a trifle of malice, a happy citation, a graceful recitation, are not these so many distractions for her, and the time thus employed, is it not so much gained for virtue?

The great misfortune with women is, without doubt, the inability to find occupations worthy of their attention, and this is the reason why love with them is a more violent passion than with men, but they have a characteristic which, properly directed may serve as an antidote. All women, to say the least, are as vain as they are sensitive, whence, the cure for sensitiveness is vanity. While a woman is occupied in pleasing in other ways than by the beauty of her figure, she loses sight of the sentiment which inspires her to act. In truth, this sentiment will not cease to be the "determining motive" (you must permit me to use some technical term of art), but it will not be the actual object presented to her attention, and that is something gained. Wholly devoted to the care of becoming perfect in the species of glory to which she aspires, this same desire, of which love will be the source, will turn against love, by dividing the attention of the mind and the affections of the heart; in a word it will create a diversion.

But perhaps you will tell me that there are women of spirit and talents beyond the reach of attack. Whence you infer that men who do not dislike freedom will avoid them, but that fools and men of intelligence cultivate them. That is true, but the fools take to them because they do not perceive the difficulty in their way, and men of intelligence do not avoid them, because they aspire to surmount it.

Now, ought not you, who are a military man, to appreciate everything I say to you about talent? I will suppose a campaign upon which you have entered; you have been given charge of conducting the siege of a city. Would you be satisfied if the governor, persuaded that the city is not impregnable, should open to you the gates without having given you the least occasion to distinguish yourself? I venture to say not; he should resist, and the more he seeks to cover himself with glory, the more glory he gives you. Well, Marquis, in love as in war, the pleasure of obtaining a victory is measured according to the obstacles in the way of it. Shall I say it? I am tempted to push the parallel farther. See what it is to take a first step. The true glory of a woman consists less, perhaps, in yielding, than in putting in a good defense, so that she will merit the honors of war.

I shall go still farther. Let a woman become feeble enough to be at the point of yielding, what is left her to retain a satisfactory lover, if her intelligence and talents do not come to her aid? I am well aware that they do not give themselves these advantages, but if we investigate the matter, we shall find that there are very few women who may not acquire a few accomplishments if they really set about it; the difference would only be the more, at least. But women are generally born too indolent to be able to make such an effort. They have discovered that there is nothing so convenient as being pretty. This manner of pleasing does not require any labor; they would be glad not to have any other. Blind that they are, they do not see that beauty and talents equally attract the attention of men, but, beauty merely exposes her who possesses it, whereas talents furnish her with the means of defending it.

In a word, to appreciate it at its full value, beauty stores up regrets and a mortal weariness for the day when it shall cease to exist. Would you know the reason? It is because it drowns out all other resources. As long as beauty lasts, a woman is regarded as something, she is celebrated, a crowd sighs at her feet. She flatters herself that this will go on forever. What a desolate solitude when age comes to ravish her of the only merit she possesses? I would like, therefore (my expression is not elevated, but it interprets my thought), I would like that in a woman, beauty could be a sign of other advantages.

Let us agree, Marquis, that in love, the mind is made more use of than the heart. A liaison of the heart is a drama in which the acts are the shortest and the between acts the longest; with what then, would you fill the interludes if not with accomplishments? Possession puts every woman on the same level, and exposes all of them equally to infidelity. The elegant and the beautiful, when they are nothing else, have not, in that respect, any advantage over her who is plain; the mind, in that case making all the difference. That alone can bestow upon the same person the variety necessary to prevent satiety. Moreover, it is only accomplishments that can fill the vacuum of a passion that has been satisfied, and we can always have them in any situation we may imagine, either to postpone defeat and render it more flattering, or to assure us of our conquests. Lovers themselves profit by them. How many things they cherish although they set their faces against them? Wherefore, let the Countess, while cultivating her decided talent for the clavecin, understand her interests and yours.

I have read over my letter, my dear Marquis, and I tremble lest you find it a trifle serious. You see what happens when one is in bad company. I supped last night with M. de la Rochefoucauld, and I never see him that he does not spoil me in this fashion, at least for three or four days.



XXIX

The Misfortune of Too Sudden an Avowal

I think as you do, Marquis, the Countess punishes you too severely for having surprised an avowal of her love. Is it your fault if her secret escaped? She has gone too far to retreat. A woman can experience a return to reason, but to go so far as to refuse to see you for three days; give out that she has gone into the country for a month; return your tender letters without opening them, is, in my opinion, a veritable caprice of virtue. After all, however, do not despair whatever may happen. If she were really indifferent she would be less severe.

Do not make any mistake about this: There are occasions when a woman is less out of humor with you than with herself. She feels with vexation that her weakness is ready to betray her at any moment. She punishes you for it, and she punishes herself by being unkind to you. But you may be sure that one day of such caprice advances the progress of a lover more than a year of care and assiduity. A woman soon begins to regret her unkindness; she deems herself unjust; she desires to repair her fault, and she becomes benevolent.

What surprises me the most is the marked passage in your letter which states that since the Countess has appeared to love you, her character has totally changed. I have no particular information on that point. All I know is, that she made her debut in society as a lady of elegance, and her debut was all the more marked because, during the life of her husband, her conduct was entirely the contrary. Do you not remember when you first made her acquaintance, that she was lively even to giddiness, heedless, bold, even coquettish, and appeared to be incapable of a reasonable attachment? However, to-day, you tell me, she has become a serious melancholic; pre-occupied, timid, affected; sentiment has taken the place of mincing airs; at least she appears to so fit in with the character she assumes to-day, that you imagine it to be her true one, and her former one, borrowed. All my philosophy would be at fault in such a case, if I did not recognize in this metamorphosis the effects of love. I am very much mistaken if the storm raging around you to-day, does not end in the most complete victory, and one all the more assured because she has done everything in her power to prevent it. But if you steadily pursue your object, carrying your pursuit even as far as importunity, follow her wherever she goes and where you can see her; if you take it upon yourself not to allude to your passion, and treat her with all the mannerism of an attentive follower, respectful, but impressed, what will happen? She will be unable to refuse you the courtesies due any indifferent acquaintance. Women possess an inexhaustible fund of kindness for those who love them. You know this well, you men, and it is what always reassures you when you are treated unkindly. You know that your presence, your attentions, the sorrow that affects you have their effect, and end by disarming our pride.

You are persuaded that those whom our virtue keeps at a distance through pride, are precisely those whom it fears the most, and unfortunately, your guess is only too just, it keeps them off, indeed, because it is not sure of its ability to resist them. It does more sometimes, it goes to the length of braving an enemy whose attack it dares not anticipate. In a word, the courage of a reasonable woman is nearly always equal to a first effort, but rarely is that effort lasting. The very excess of its violence is the cause of its weakening. The soul has only one degree of force, and exhausted by the constraint that effort cost it, it abandons itself to lassitude. By and by, the knowledge of its weakness throws it into discouragement. A woman of that disposition bears the first shock of a redoubtable enemy with courage, but, the danger better understood, she fears a second attack. A woman, persuaded that she has done everything possible to defend herself against an inclination which is urging her on, satisfied with the combats in which she has been engaged, finally reaches the opinion that her resistance can not prevail against the power of love. If she still resist, it is not by her own strength; she derives no help except from the idea of the intrepidity she at first displayed to him who attacks, or from the timidity she inspired in him in the beginning of her resistance. Thus it is, that however reasonable she may be, she nearly always starts out with a fine defense, she only needs pride to resolve upon that; but unfortunately, you divine the means of overcoming her, you persevere in your attacks, she is not indefatigable, and you have so little delicacy that, provided you obtain her heart, it is of no consequence to you whether you have obtained it through your importunities or with her consent.

Besides that, Marquis, the excess of precautions a woman takes against you, is strong evidence of how much you are feared. If you were an object of indifference, would a woman take the trouble to avoid you? I declare to you that she would not honor you by being afraid of you. But I know how unreasonable lovers are. Always ingenious in tormenting themselves, the habit of never having but one object in view is so powerful, that they prefer being pestered with one that is disagreeable than with none at all.

However, I feel sorry for you. Smitten as you are, your situation can not fail to be a sad one. The poor Marquis, how badly he is treated!



XXX

When Resistance Is Only a Pretense

I was delighted to learn before my departure for the country, that your mind was more at rest. I feel free to say, that if the Countess had persevered in treating you with the same severity, I should have suspected, not that she was insensible to your love, but that you had a fortunate rival. The resistance manifested by her would have been beyond her strength in a single combat. For you should be well advised, Marquis, that a woman is never more intractable than when she assumes a haughtiness toward all other men, for the sake of her favorite lover.

I see in everything you have told me, proofs that you are loved, and that you are the only one. I will be able to give you constant news on that score, for I am going to investigate the Countess for myself. This will surprise you, no doubt. Your astonishment will cease, however, when you call to mind that Madame de la Sabliere's house, where I am going to spend a week, adjoins the grounds of your amiable widow. You told me that she was at home, and, add to the neighborhood, the unmeasured longing I have to make her acquaintance, you will not be surprised at the promise I have just made you.

I have not the time to finish this letter, nor the opportunity to send it. I must depart immediately, and my traveling companion is teasing me in a strange fashion, pretending that I am writing a love letter. I am letting her think what she pleases, and carry the letter with me to the country. Adieu. What! Madame de Grignan's illness will not permit you to visit us in our solitude?

Du Chateau de—-.

I am writing you from the country house of the Countess, my dear Marquis, this is the third day I have been with her, which will enable you to understand that I am not in bad favor with the mistress of the house. She is an adorable woman, I am delighted with her. I sometimes doubt whether you deserve a heart like hers. Here I am her confidante. She has told me all she thinks about you, and I do not despair of discovering, before I return to the city, the reasons for the change in her character which you have remarked. I dare not write you more now, I may be interrupted, and I do not wish any one to know that I am writing you from this place. Adieu.



XXXI

The Opinion and Advice of Monsieur de la Sabliere

How many things I have to tell you, Marquis! I was preparing to keep my word with you, and had arranged to use strategy upon the Countess to worm her secret from her, when chance came to my aid.

You are not ignorant of her confidence in Monsieur de la Sabliere. She was with him just now in an arbor of the garden, and I was passing through a bushy path intending to join them, when the mention of your name arrested my steps. I was not noticed, and heard all the conversation, which I hasten to communicate to you word for word.

"I have not been able to conceal from your penetration, my inclination for M. de Sevigne," said the Countess, "and you can not reconcile the serious nature of so decided a passion with the frivolity attributed to me in society. You will be still more astonished when I tell you that my exterior character is not my true one, that the seriousness you notice in me now, is a return to my former disposition; I was never giddy except through design. Perhaps you may have imagined that women can only conceal their faults, but they sometimes go much farther, sir, and I am an instance. They even disguise their virtues, and since the word has escaped me, I am tempted, at the risk of wearying you, to explain by what strange gradation I reached that point.

"During my married life I lived retired from the world. You knew the Count and his taste for solitude. When I became a widow, there was the question of returning to society, and my embarrassment as to how I was to present myself was not small. I interrogated my own heart; in vain I sought to hide it from my own knowledge, I had a strong taste for the pleasures of society; but at the same time I was determined to add to it purity of morals. But how to reconcile all this? It seemed to me a difficult task to establish a system of conduct which, without compromising me, would not at the same time deprive me of the pleasures of life.

"This is the way I reasoned: Destined to live among men, formed to please them, and to share in their happiness, we are obliged to suffer from their caprices, and above all fear their malignity. It seems that they have no other object in our education than that of fitting us for love, indeed, it is the only passion permitted us, and by a strange and cruel contrariety, they have left us only one glory to obtain, which is that of gaining a victory over the very inclination imposed upon us. I therefore endeavored to ascertain the best means of reconciling in use and custom, two such glaring extremes, and I found predicaments on all sides.

"We are, I said to myself, simple enough when we enter society, to imagine that the greatest happiness of a woman should be to love and be loved. We then are under the impression that love is based on esteem, upheld by the knowledge of amiable qualities, purified by delicacy of sentiment, divested of all the insipidities which disfigure it, in a word, fostered by confidence and the effusions of the heart. But unfortunately, a sentiment so flattering for a woman without experience, is everything less than that in practice. She is always disabused when too late.

"I was so good in the beginning as to be scandalized at two imperfections I perceived in men, their inconstancy and their untruthfulness. The reflections I made on the first of these defects, led me to the opinion that they were more unfortunate than guilty. From the manner in which the human heart is constituted, is it possible for it to be occupied with only one object? No, but does the treachery of men deserve the same indulgence? Most men attack a woman's virtue in cold blood, in the design to use her for their amusement, to sacrifice her to their vanity, to fill a void in an idle life, or to acquire a sort of reputation based upon the loss of ours. There is a large number of men in this class. How to distinguish true lovers? They all look alike on the surface, and the man who pretends to be amorous, is often more seductive than one who really is.

"We are, moreover, dupes enough to make love a capital affair. You men, on the contrary, consider it merely a play; we rarely surrender to it without an inclination for the person of the lover; you are coarse enough to yield to it without taste. Constancy with us is a duty; you give way to the slightest distaste without scruple. You are scarcely decent in leaving a mistress, the possession of whom, six months before, was your glory and happiness. She may consider herself well off if she is not punished by the most cruel indiscretions.

"Hence I regarded things from their tragical side, and said to myself: 'If love draws with it so many misfortunes, a woman who cherishes her peace of mind and reputation, should never love.' However, everything tells me that we have a heart, that this heart is made for love, and that love is involuntary. Why, then, venture to destroy an inclination that is part of our being? Would it not be wiser to rectify it? Let us see how it will be possible to succeed in such an enterprise.

"What is a dangerous love? I have observed that kind of love. It is a love which occupies the whole soul to the exclusion of every other sentiment, and which impels us to sacrifice everything to the object loved.

"What characters are susceptible of such a sentiment? They are the most solid, those who show little on the outside, those who unite reason with an elevated nobility of character in their fashion of thinking.

"Finally, who are the men the most reasonable for women of that kind? It is those who possess just sufficient brilliant qualities to fix a value on their essential merit. It must be confessed, though, that such men are not good companions for women who think. It is true, they are rare at present, and there has never been a period so favorable as this to guarantee us against great passions, but misfortune will have it that we meet one of them in the crowd.

"The moralists pretend that every woman possesses a fund of sensibility destined to be applied to some object or another. A sensible woman is not affected by the thousand trifling advantages so agreeable to men in ordinary women. When she meets an object worthy of her attention, it is quite natural that she should estimate the value of it; her affection is measured according to her lights, she can not go half way. It is these characters that should not be imitated, and all acquaintance with the men of whom I have just been speaking, should be avoided if a woman values her peace of mind. Let us create a character which can procure for us two advantages at one and the same time: One to guard us from immoderate impressions; the other to ward off men who cause them. Let us give them an outside which will at least prevent them from displaying qualities they do not possess. Let us force them to please us by their frivolity, by their absurdities. However much they may practice affectation, their visible faults would furnish us with weapons against them. What happy state can a woman occupy to procure such safeguards? It is undoubtedly that of a professional society woman.

"You are doubtless astonished at the strange conclusion to which my serious reasoning has led me. You will be still more astonished when you shall have heard the logic I employ to prove that I am right: listen to the end. I know the justice of your mind, and I am not lacking in it, however frivolous I may appear to be, and you will finish by being of my opinion.

"Do you believe that the outward appearance of virtue guarantees the heart against the assaults of love? A poor resource. When a woman descends to a weakness, is not her humiliation proportionately as great as the esteem she hoped to secure? The brighter her virtue, the easier mark for malice.

"What is the world's idea of a virtuous woman? Are not men so unjust as to believe that the wisest woman is she who best conceals her weakness; or who, by a forced retreat puts herself beyond the possibility of having any? Rather than accord us a single perfection, they carry wickedness to the point of attributing to us a perpetual state of violence, every time we undertake to resist their advances. One of our friends said: 'There is not an honest woman who is not tired of being so.' And what recompense do they offer us for the cruel torments to which they have condemned us? Do they raise up an altar to our heroism? No! The most honest woman, they say, is she who is not talked about, that is to say, a perfect indifference on the part of a woman, a general oblivion is the price of our virtue. Must women not have much of it to preserve it at such a price? Who would not be tempted to abandon it? But there are grave matters which can not be overlooked.

"Dishonor closely follows upon weakness. Old age is dreadful in itself, what must it not be when it is passed in remorse? I feel the necessity of avoiding such a misfortune. I calculated at first that I could not succeed in, doing so, without condemning myself to a life of austerity, and I had not the courage to undertake it. But it gradually dawned upon me that the condition of a society woman was alone competent to reconcile virtue with pleasure. From the smile on your face, I suspect such an idea appears to be a paradox to you. But it is more reasonable than you imagine.

"Tell me this: Is a society woman obliged to have an attachment? Is she not exempt from tenderness? It is sufficient for her to be amiable and courteous, everything on the surface. As soon as she becomes expert in the role she has undertaken, then, the only mistrust the world has of her is that she has no heart. A fine figure, haughty airs, caprices, fashionable jargon, fantasies, and fads, that is all that is required of her. She can be essentially virtuous with impunity. Does any one presume to make advances? If he meet with resistance he quickly gives over worrying her, he thinks her heart is already captured, and he patiently awaits his turn. His perseverance would be out of place, for she would notify a man who failed to pay her deference, that it was owing to arrangements made before he offered himself. In this way a woman is protected by the bad opinion had of her.

"I read in your eyes that you are about to say to me: The state of a professional society woman may injure my reputation, and plunge me into difficulties I seek to avoid. Is not that your thought? But do you not know, Monsieur, that the most austere conduct does not guard a woman from the shafts of malice? The opinion men give of women's reputation, and the good and wrong ideas they acquire of us are always equally false. It is prejudice, it is a species of fatality which governs their judgment, so that our glory depends less upon a real virtue than upon auspicious circumstances. The hope of filling an honorable place in their imagination, ought not to be the sole incentive to the practice of virtue, it should be the desire to have a good opinion of ourselves, and to be able to say, whatever may be the opinion of the public: I have nothing with which to reproach myself. But, what matters it to what we owe our virtue, provided we have it?

"I was therefore convinced that I could not do better, when I reappeared in the world, than to don the mask I deemed the most favorable to my peace of mind and to my glory. I became closely attached to the friend who aided me with her counsel. She is the Marquise de ——, a relative. Our sentiments were in perfect accord. We frequented the same society. Charity for our neighbors was truly not our favorite virtue. We made our appearance in a social circle as into a ball room, where we were the only masks. We indulged in all sorts of follies, we goaded the absurd into showing themselves in their true character. After having amused ourselves in this comedy, we had not yet reached the limit of our pleasure, it was renewed in private interviews. How absolutely idiotic the women appeared to us, and the men, how vacuous, fatuous, and impertinent! If we found any who could inspire fear in a woman's heart, that is, esteem, we broke their heart by our airs, by affecting utter indifference for them, and by the allurements we heaped upon those who deserved them the least. By force of our experience, we came near believing, that in order to be virtuous, it was necessary to frequent bad company.

"This course of conduct guaranteed us for a long time against the snares of love, and saved us from the dreadful weariness a sad and more mournful virtue would have spread over our lives. Frivolous, imperious, bold, even coquettish if you will, in the presence of men, but solid, reasonable, and virtuous in our own eyes, we were happy in this character. We never met a man we were afraid of. Those who might have been redoubtable, were obliged to make themselves ridiculous before being permitted to enjoy our society.

"But what finally led me to doubt the truth of my principles, is they did not always guard me from the dangers I wished to avoid. I have learned through my own experience, that love is a traitor with whom it will not do to trifle. I do not know by what fatality, the Marquis de Sevigne was able to render my projects futile. In spite of all my precautions he has found the way to my heart. However much I resisted him I was impelled to love him, and my reason is of no more use to me except to justify in my own eyes the inclination I feel for him. I would be happy if he never gave me an occasion to change my sentiments. I have been unable to hide from him my true thoughts, I was afraid at first that he might deem me actually as ridiculous as I seemed to be. And when my sincerity shall render me less amiable in his eyes (for I know that frivolity captures men more than real merit), I wish to show myself to him in my true colors. I should blush to owe nothing to his heart but a perpetual lie of my whole being."

"I am still less surprised, Madame," said Monsieur de la Sabliere, "at the novelty of your project, than at the skill with which you have succeeded in rendering such a singular idea plausible. Permit me to say, that it is not possible to go astray with more spirit. Have you experimented with everybody according to your system? Men go a long way around to avoid the beaten track, but they all fall over the same obstacles. To make use of the privilege you granted me to tell you plainly my thought, believe me, Countess, that the only way for you to preserve your peace of mind is to resume openly your position as a reasonable woman. There is nothing to be gained by compounding with virtue."

When I heard the conversation taking that complexion, I knew it would soon finish, and I therefore promptly withdrew, and could not think of anything but satisfying your curiosity. I am tired of writing. In two days I shall return to Paris.



XXXII

The Advantages of a Knowledge of the Heart

Well, Marquis, here I am back again, but the news I bring you may not be altogether to your liking. You have never had so fine an occasion to charge women with caprice. I wrote you the last time to tell you that you were loved, to-day I write just the contrary.

A strange resolution has been taken against you; tremble, 'tis a thing settled; the Countess purposes loving you at her ease, and without its costing her any disturbance of her peace of mind. She has seen the consequences of a passion similar to yours, and she can not face it without dismay. She intends, therefore, to arrest its progress. Do not let the proofs she has given you reassure you. You men imagine that as soon as a woman has confessed her love she can never more break her chains; undeceive yourself. The Countess is much more reasonable on your account than I thought, and I do not hide from you the fact that a portion of her firmness is due to my advice. You need not rely any more on my letters, and you do not require any help from them to understand women.

I sometimes regret that I have furnished you weapons against my sex, without them would you ever have been able to touch the heart of the Countess? I must avow that I have judged women with too much rigor, and you now see me ready to make them a reparation. I know it now, there are more stable and essentially virtuous women than I had thought.

What a stock of reason! What a combination of all the estimable qualities in our friend! No, Marquis, I could no longer withhold from her the sentiment of my most tender esteem, and without consulting your interests, I have united with her against you. You will murmur at this, but the confidence she has given me, does it not demand this return on my part? I will not hide from you any of my wickedness; I have carried malice to the point of instructing her in the advantages you might draw from everything I have written you about women.

"I feel," she said to me, "how redoubtable is a lover who combines with so much knowledge of the heart, the talent to express himself in such noble and delicate language. What advantages can he not have of women who reason? I have remarked it, it is by his powers of reasoning that he has overcome them. He possesses the art of employing the intelligence he finds in a woman to justify, in the eyes of his reason, the errors into which he draws her. Besides, a woman in love thinks she is obliged to proportion her sacrifices to the good qualities of the man she loves. To an ordinary man, a weakness is a weakness, he blushes at it; to a man of intelligence, it is a tribute paid to his merits, it is even a proof of our discernment; he eulogizes our good taste and takes the credit of it. It is thus by turning it to the profit of the vanity which he rescues from virtue, that this enchanter hides from our eyes the grades of our weakness."

Such are at present, Marquis, the sentiments of the Countess, and I am not sure if they leave you much to hope for. I do not ignore the fact that it might have doubtless been better to carry out the project we have in view without giving you any information concerning it. That was our first intention; but could I in conscience secretly work against you? Would it not have been to betray you? Moreover, by taking that course, we should have appeared to be afraid of you, and hence we found courage to put you in possession of all we expect to do to resist you.

Come, now, Marquis, our desire to see you really makes us impatient. Would you know the reason? It is because we expect you without fearing you. Remember that you have not now a weak loving woman to fight against, she would be too feeble an adversary, her courage might give out; it is I, now, it is a woman of cold blood, who fancies herself interested in saving the reason of her friend from being wrecked. Yes, I will penetrate to the bottom of your heart; I will read there your perverse designs; I will forestall them; I will render all the artifices of your malice innocuous.

You may accuse me of treason as much as you please, but come to-night, and I will convince you that my conduct is conformable to the most exact equity. While your inexperience needed enlightenment, assistance, encouragement, my zeal in your cause urged me to sacrifice everything in your interests. Every advantage was then on the side of the Countess. But now there is a different face on things; all her pride to-day, is barely strong enough to resist you. Formerly, her indifference was in her favor, and, what was worth still more, your lack of skill; to-day you have the experience, and she has her reason the less.

After that, to combine with you against her, to betray the confidence she reposes in me, to refuse her the succor she has the right to expect from me, if you are sincere, you will avow it yourself, would be a crying wrong. Henceforth, I purpose to repair the evil I have done in revealing our secrets, by initiating you into our mysteries. I do not know why, but the pleasure I feel in crossing you, appears to be working in my favor, and you know how far my rights oven you extend. My sentiments will always be the same, and, on your part without doubt, you are too equitable to diminish your esteem for me, because of anything I may have done in favor of a friend.

By and by, then, at the Countess'.



XXXIII

A Heart Once Wounded No Longer Plays with Love

What, Marquis, afraid of two women? You already despair of your affairs, because they oppose your success, and you are ready to abandon the game? Dear me, I thought you had more courage. It is true that the firmness of the Countess astonishes even me, but I do not understand how she could hold out against your ardor for an entire evening. I never saw you so seductive, and she has just confessed to me that you were never so redoubtable. Now I can respond for her, since her courage did not fail her on an occasion of so much peril. I saw still farther, and I judge from her well sustained ironical conversation, that she is only moderately smitten. A woman really wounded by the shaft of love would not have played with sentiment in such a flippant manner.

This gives birth to a strange idea. It would be very delightful, if in a joking way, we should discover that your tender Adelaide does not love you up to a certain point. What a blow that would be to your vanity! But you would quickly seek revenge. You might certainly find beauties ready to console you for your loss. How often has vexation made you say: "What is a woman's heart? Can any one give me a definition of it?"

However, do you know that I am tempted to find fault with you, and if you take this too much to heart, I do not know what I would not do to soften the situation. But I know you are strong minded. Your first feelings of displeasure past, you will soon see that the best thing you can do is to come down to the quality of friend, a position which we have so generously offered you. You ought to consider yourself very fortunate, your dismissal might be made absolute. But do not make this out to be much of a victory, you will be more harshly treated if we consider you more to be feared.

Adieu, Marquis. The Countess, who is sitting at the head of my bed, sends you a thousand tender things. She is edified by the discretion with which you have treated us; not to insist when two ladies seem to be so contrary to you, that is the height of gallantry. So much modesty will certainly disarm them, and may some day move them to pity. Hope, that is permitted you.

From the Countess.

Although you may be inspired by the most flattering hopes, Marquis, I will add a few words to this letter. I have not read it, but I suspect that it refers to me. I wish, however, to write you with my own hand that we shall be alone here all day. I wish to tell you that I love you moderately well at present, but that I have the greatest desire in the world not to love you at all. However, if you deem it advisable to come and trouble our little party, it gives me pleasure to warn you that your heart will be exposed to the greatest danger. I am told that I am handsomer to-day than you have ever found me to be, and I never felt more in the humor to treat you badly.



XXXIV

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

All this, Marquis, begins to pass the bounds of pleasantry. Explain yourself, I pray you. Did you pretend to speak seriously in your letter, in making it understood that I was acting on this occasion through jealousy, and that I was trying to separate you and the Countess to profit by it myself?

You are either the wickedest of men or the most adroit; the wickedest if you ever could suspect me guilty of such baseness; the most adroit, if you have thrown out that idea to make my friend suspect me. I see very clearly in all this, that the alternative is equally injurious to me, since the Countess has taken the matter to heart. I find that my relations with her are very embarrassing. Criminal that you are, how well you know your ascendency over her heart! You could not better attack her than by the appearance of indifference you affect. Not deign to answer my last letter, not come to the rendezvous given you, remain away from us three days, and after all that, to write us the coldest letter possible, oh, I confess it frankly, that is to act like a perfect man; that is what I call a master stroke, and the most complete success has responded to your hope. The Countess has not been able to stand against so much coolness. The fear that this indifference may become real has caused her a mortal anxiety.

Great Heavens! What is the most reasonable woman when love has turned her head? Why were you not the witness of the reproaches I have just heard? How is that? To hear the Countess to-day, gave me an injurious opinion of her virtue, a false idea of your pretensions, and I considered your designs criminal because you took so much pleasure in punishing her.

I am hard, unjust, cruel, I can not remember all the epithets with which I was covered. What outbursts! Oh, I protest to you, this will be the last storm I will undergo for being mixed up in your affairs, and I very cordially renounce the confidence with which you have both honored me. Advisers do not play a very agreeable part in such cases, so it seems to me, always charged with what is disagreeable in quarrels, and the lovers only profit by a reconciliation.

However, after due reflection, I think I should be very silly to take offence at this. You are two children whose follies will amuse me, I ought to look upon them with the eye of a philosopher, and finish by being the friend of both. Come then, at once, and assure me if that resolution will suit you. Now, do not play the petty cruel role any more. Come and make peace. These poor children; one of them has such innocent motives, the other is so sure of her virtue, that to stand in the way of their inclination, is surely to afflict them without reason.



XXXV

The Heart Should be Played Upon Like the Keys of a Piano

I am beginning to understand, Marquis, that the only way to live with the most reasonable woman, is never to meddle with her heart affairs. I have, therefore, made up my mind. Henceforward I shall never mention your name to the Countess unless she insists upon my doing so; I do not like bickerings.

But this resolution will change nothing of my sentiments for you, nor my friendship for her. And, although I still stand her friend, I shall not scruple to make use of my friendship, so far as you are concerned, as I have in the past I shall continue, since you so wish it, to give you my ideas on the situations in which you may become involved, on condition, however, that you permit me sometimes to laugh at your expense, a liberty I shall not take to-day, because if the Countess follows up the plan she has formed, that is, if she persists in refusing to see you alone, I do not see that your affairs will advance very rapidly. She remembers what I told her, she knows her heart, and has reason to fear it.

It is only an imprudent woman who relies upon her own strength, and exposes herself without anxiety to the advances of the man she loves. The agitation which animates him, the fire with which his whole person appears to be burning, excites our senses, fires our imagination, appeals to our desires. I said to the Countess one day: "We resemble your clavecin; however well disposed it may be to respond to the hand which should play upon it, until it feels the impression of that hand, it remains silent; touch its keys, and sounds are heard." Finish the parallel, and draw your conclusions.

But after all, why should you complain, Monsieur, the metaphysician? To see the Countess, hear the soft tones of her voice, render her little attentions, carry the delicacy of sentiment beyond the range of mortal vision, feel edified at her discourses on virtue, are not these supreme felicity for you? Leave for earthy souls the gross sentiments which are beginning to develop in you. To look at you to-day, it might be said that I was not so far out of the way when I declared love to be the work of the senses. Your own experience will compel you to avow that I had some good reason for saying so, for which I am not at all sorry. Consider yourself punished for your injustice. Adieu.

Your old rival, the Chevalier, has revenged himself for the rigors of the Countess, by tying himself up with the Marquise, her relative. This choice is assuredly a eulogy on his good taste, they are made for each other. I shall be very much charmed to know whither their fine passion will lead them.



XXXVI

Mistaken Impressions Common to All Women

Do you think, Marquis, that I have not felt all the sarcasm you have deigned to turn against me on account of my pretended reconciliation with the Countess? Know this, sir, that we have never been at outs.

It is true, she begged me to forget her vivacity, which she claimed was due to her love, and she insisted that I should continue to give her good counsel. But Good Heavens! Of what use are my counsels except to provide you with an additional triumph? The best advice I can give her is to break off her relations with you, for whatever confidence she may have in her pride, her only preservative against you is flight. She believes, for example, that she used her reason with good effect in the conversation you have related to me. But every reasonable woman does not fail to use the same language as soon as a lover shows her some respectful pretensions.

"I only want your heart," they say, "your sentiments, your esteem is all I desire. Alas! you will find only too many women with so little delicacy as to believe themselves very happy in accepting what I refuse. I will never envy them a happiness of that kind."

Be on your guard, Marquis, and do not openly combat such fine sentiments; to doubt a woman's sincerity on such occasions, is to do more than offend them, it is to be maladroit. You must applaud their mistaken idea if you would profit by it. They wish to appear high-minded, and sensible only of the pleasures of the soul, it is their system, their esprit du corps. If some women are in good faith on this point, how many are there who treat it as an illusion and wish to impose it upon you?

But whatever may be the reason which impels them to put you on a false scent, ought you not to be delighted that they are willing to take the trouble to deceive you? What obligations are you not under? They give in this manner, a high value to those who, without it, would be very undesirable. Admire our strategy when we feign indifference to what you call the pleasures of love, pretending even to be far removed from its sweetness, we augment the grandeur of the sacrifice we make for you, by it, we even inspire the gratitude of the authors of the very benefits we receive from them, you are satisfied with the good you do us.

And since it was said that we make it a duty to deceive you, what obligation do you not owe us? We have chosen the most obliging way to do it. You are the first to gain by this deceit, for we can not multiply obstacles without enhancing the price of your victory. Troubles, cares, are not these the money with which lovers pay for their pleasures? What a satisfaction for your vanity to be able to say within yourselves: "This woman, so refined, so insensible to the impressions of the senses; this woman who fears disdain so much, comes to me, nevertheless, and sacrifices her repugnance, her fears, her pride? My own merit, the charms of my person, my skill, have surmounted invincible objects for something quite different. How satisfied I am with my prowess!"

If women acted in good faith, if they were in as much haste to show you their desires as you are to penetrate them, you could not talk that way. How many pleasures lost! But you can not impute wrong to this artifice, it gives birth to so many advantages. Pretend to be deceived, and it will become a pleasure to you.

If the Countess knew what I have written, how she would reproach me!



XXXVII

The Allurements of Stage Women

I know too well that a man in your position, particularly a military man, is often exposed to bad company, consequently, he is attracted by the divinities you mention. In spite of that you are not deceived, and I would probably censure you, if I were not so sure, that, in the present state of your heart, the heroines of the theater are not dangerous to you. But the Countess is less indulgent, you say. Her jealousy does not astonish me, she confirms my ideas concerning female metaphysicians. I know how much credit is due their sincerity. Her complaints are very singular, for, what is she deprived of? The women in question are nothing but women of sentiment, and it is to sentiment that the Countess is attached.

How little women are in accord! They pretend to despise women of the stage; they fear them too much to despise them. But after all, are they wrong to consider them rivals? Are you not more captivated with their free and easy style, than with that of a sensible woman who has nothing to offer but order, decency, and uniformity? With the former, men are at their ease, they appear to be in their element; with the latter, men are kept within bounds, obliged to stand on their dignity, and to be very circumspect. From the portrait of several of them, I should judge that there are some of them very capable of making many men unfaithful to the most beloved mistress. But with a sensible man, this infidelity, if it be one, can not be of long duration. These women may create a sudden, lively desire, but never a veritable passion.

The fairies of the operatic stage would be too dangerous, if they had the wit or the humor always to amuse you as much as they do the first time you are thrown on their company. However little jargon, habits, and decency they have on the surface, it is possible that they may please you at first. You men have so little refinement sometimes! The freedom of their conversation, the vivacity of their sallies of alleged wit, their giddy ways, all this affords you a situation that charms; a lively and silly joy seizes upon you, the hours you pass with them seem to be only moments. But happily for you, they seldom possess sufficient resources to maintain a role so amusing. Inasmuch as they lack education and culture, they soon travel around the small circle of their accomplishments. They feed you with the same pleasantries, the same stories, the same antics, and it is seldom one laughs twice at the same thing when one has no esteem for the fun maker.

The Countess need not worry, for I know you well enough to assure her that it is not that class of women she may apprehend, there are in the world, others more redoubtable, they are the "gallant women," those equivocal women in society. They occupy a middle position between good women and those I have been talking about; they associate with the former and are not different from the latter except on the surface. More voluptuous than tender, they seduce by lending to the least refined sentiments an air of passion which is mistaken for love. They understand how to convey an impression of tenderness to what is only a taste for pleasure. They make you believe that it is by choice, by a knowledge of your merit that they yield. If you do not know them to be gallant women, the shade of difference which distinguishes the true motives which actuates them, from the sensibility of the heart, is impossible to seize. You accept for excess of passion what is only an intoxication of the senses. You imagine you are loved because you are lovable, but it is only because you are a man.

These are the women I should fear if I were in the place of the Countess. The financial woman who has lately appeared in society belongs to this class, but I have already warned the Countess.

I call to mind, here, that in your preceding letter, you mentioned the allurements which the Countess thought proper to manifest? She was right in taking umbrage. Your passion for her is truly too great to prevent you from sacrificing everything, but I fear you will not always be so honest.

Madame de —— possesses bloom and cheerfulness; she is at an age when women assume charge of young men who desire to be fitted for society, and to learn their first lessons in gallantry. The interesting and affectionate disposition you find in her will have its effect, but be careful, it is I who warn you. Although I despise such women, it happens that they have the power to create attachments; they often find the secret of making you commit more follies than any of the other women.



XXXVIII

Varieties of Resistance are Essential

I hasten to tell you, Marquis, that I have just maintained a thesis against Monsieur de la Bruyere. No doubt you admire my temerity? However it is true. He pretends that Corneille described men as they should be, and Racine as they are; I held the contrary. We had some illustrious spectators of the dispute, and I ought to be very proud of the suffrages in my favor.

But all the details would be too long to write you, so come and we will talk them over. Every one has his own fashion of describing things, I have mine, I know. I represent women as they are, and I am very sorry not to be able to represent them as they should be. Now I shall reply to your letter.

The species of languor which affects you does not surprise me. The malady which afflicts the Marquise has deprived you of the pleasure of seeing the Countess, and your heart remaining in the same condition for three days, it is not surprising that ennui should have gained upon it. Neither does your present indifference for the Countess alarm me. In the greatest passions there are always moments of lukewarmness, which astonish the hearts that feel the sensation. Whether the heart, constantly agitated by the same emotions, finally tires, or whether it is absolutely impossible for it to be always employed with the same object, there are moments of indifference, the cause of which can not be ascertained. The livelier the emotions of the heart, the more profound the calm that is sure to follow, and it is this calm that is always more fateful to the object loved than storm and agitation. Love is extinguished by a resistance too severe or constant. But an intelligent woman goes beyond that, she varies her manner of resisting; this is the sublimity of the art.

Now, with the Countess, the duties of friendship are preferable to the claims of love, and that is another reason for your indifference toward her. Love is a jealous and tyrannical sentiment, which is never satiated until the object loved has sacrificed upon its altar all desires and passions. You do nothing for it unless you do everything. Whenever you prefer duty, friendship, etc., it claims the right to complain. It demands revenge. The small courtesies you deemed it necessary to show Madame de —— are proofs of it. I would have much preferred, though, you had not carried them so far as accompanying her home. The length of time you passed in her company, the pleasure you experienced in conversing with her, the questions she put to you on the state of your heart, all goes to prove the truth of what I said in my last letter. It is vain for you to protest that you came away more amorous than ever of the Countess, your embarrassment when she inquired whether you had remained long with your "fermiere generale," the attempt you made to deceive her by an evasive answer, the extreme care you took to disarm her slightest suspicion, are indications to me that you are far more guilty than you pretend, or than you are aware of yourself.