There are very few women here who are not coquettes by nature; it
is excessively rare to meet any. Before God that is perhaps very
reprehensible, but before men it is thought a fair game. The coquettes
flatter themselves that, our Lord having shown in Holy Scripture so
much charity for persons of their stripe, he will certainly have
compassion for them; the cases of Mary Magdalen, of the Samaritan
woman, and of the woman taken in adultery make them easy in mind. You
must not think that they ever tire of coquetry; they cannot do without
it, so to speak, and they never get tired of it. Drunkenness is but
too much the fashion among the young women; but just now they are all
in a state of complete satisfaction. Nothing is thought of but how to
amuse the Duchesse de Bourgogne with collations, presents, fireworks,
and other rejoicings:
I have not been able to perform the good work of keeping fast this
Lent. I cannot endure fish, and I am quite convinced that we can do
better works than spoiling our stomachs by eating too much of it.
Are you simple enough to believe that Catholics have none of the true
foundations of Christianity? Believe me, the aim of Christianity is
the same in all Christians; the differences that we see are only
priests' jargon, which does not concern honest men. What does concern
us is to live well as Christians, to be merciful, and to apply
ourselves to charity and virtue. Preachers ought to recommend all that
to Christians, and not squabble as they do over quantities of points,
as if they understood them; but this, of course, would diminish
the authority of those gentlemen, and so they busy themselves with
disputes, and not with what is more necessary and most essential.
I have in no way approved of the ill-treatment of the Reformers; but
as to that, one must blame politics, which is a subject to be treated
of _tête-à-tête_ and not touched upon by way of the post. I shall
therefore follow your good example and write of something else.
The jubilee bull has not converted all the abbés, for there are
still a goodly number of them in Paris who court the women. I never
in my life could understand how any one could fall in love with an
ecclesiastic. Neither you nor your sister are coquettes; I can truly
say I recognize my blood. What prevents one here from contracting
sincere friendships is that one can never be sure of reciprocity;
there is so much egotism and duplicity. And so one must either live in
a very sad and wearisome solitude, or resign one's self to many griefs.