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 Sévigné 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

Sévigné 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

Sévigné, 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

Sévigné. 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 Sévigné 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

Sévigné, 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 Sablière'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 Château 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 Sablière

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 Sablière. 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 Sévigné," 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

Sévigné 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 Sablière, "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 Bruyère. 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 "fermière générale,"

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.

The Countess suffers the consequences of all that. Do you not see how

she affects to rouse your jealousy by praising the Chevalier, your

ancient rival? For once, I can assure you that you will not so soon be

affected by the languors we mentioned a short time ago. Jealousy will

give you something to think about. Do you count for nothing, the

sufferings of the Marquise? You will soon see her, the ravages of the

smallpox will not alone disfigure her face, for her disposition will

be very different, as soon as she learns the extent of her misfortune.

How I pity her; how I pity other women! With what cordiality she will

hate them and tear them to tatters! The Countess is her best friend,

will she be so very long? She is so handsome, her complexion casts the

others in the shade. What storms I foresee!

I had forgotten to quarrel with you about your treatment of me. You

have been so indiscreet as to show my recent letters to M. de la

Rochefoucauld. I will cease writing you if you continue to divulge my

secret. I am willing to talk personally with him about my ideas, but I

am far from flattering myself that I write well enough to withstand

the criticism of a reader like him.

XXXIX

The True Value of Compliments Among Women

The marks left by the smallpox on the Marquise's face have set her

wild. Her resolution not to show herself for a long time does not

surprise me. How could she appear in public in such a state? If the

accident which humiliates her had not happened, how she would have

made the poor Chevalier suffer! Does not this prove that female virtue

depends upon circumstances, and diminishes with pride?

How I fear a similar example in the case of the Countess! Nothing is

more dangerous for a woman than the weaknesses of her friend; love,

already too seductive in itself, becomes more so through the contagion

of example, if I may so speak; it is not only in our heart that it

gathers strength; it acquires new weapons against reason from its

environment. A woman who has fallen under its ban, deems herself

interested, for her own justification, in conducting her friend to the

edge of the same precipice, and I am not, therefore, surprised at what

the Marquise says in your favor. Up to the present moment they have

been guided by the same principles; what a shame, then, for her, that

the Countess could not have been guaranteed against the effects of it!

Now, the Marquise has a strong reason the more for contributing to

the defeat of her friend; she has become positively ugly, and

consequently obliged to be more complaisant in retaining a lover. Will

she suffer another woman to keep hers at a less cost? That would be to

recognize too humiliating a superiority, and I can assure you that she

will do the most singular things to bring her amiable widower up to

the point.

If she succeed, how much I fear everything will be changed! To have

been as beautiful as another woman, and to be so no longer, although

she embellishes herself every day, and to suffer her presence every

day, is, I vow, an effort beyond the strength of the most reasonable

woman, greater than the most determined philosophy. Among women

friendship ceases where rivalry begins. By rivalry, I mean that of

beauty only, it would be too much to add that of sentiment.

I foresee this with regret, but it is my duty to forewarn you.

Whatever precautions the Countess may take to control the amour propre

of the Marquise, she will never make anything else out of her than an

ingrate. I do not know by what fatality, everything a beautiful woman

tells one who is no longer beautiful, assumes in the mouth, an

impression of a commiseration which breaks down the most carefully

devised management, and humiliates her whom it is thought to console.

The more a woman strives to efface the superiority she possesses over

an unfortunate sister woman, the more she makes that superiority

apparent, until the latter reaches the opinion that it is only

through generosity that she is permitted to occupy the subordinate

position left her.

You may depend upon it, Marquis, that women are never misled when it

comes to mutual praise; they fully appreciate the eulogies

interchanged among themselves; and as they speak without sincerity, so

they listen with little gratitude. And although she who speaks, in

praising the beauty of another, may do so in good faith, she who

listens to the eulogy, considers less what the other says than her

style of beauty. Is she ugly? We believe and love her, but if she be

as handsome as we, we thank her coldly and disdain her; handsomer, we

hate her more than before she spoke.

You must understand this, Marquis, that as much as two beautiful women

may have something between them to explain, it is impossible for them

to form a solid friendship. Can two merchants who have the same goods

to sell become good neighbors? Men do not penetrate the true cause of

the lack of cordiality among women. Those who are the most intimate

friends often quarrel over nothing, but do you suppose this "nothing"

is the real occasion of their quarrel? It is only the pretext. We hide

the motive of our actions when to reveal it would be a humiliation. We

do not care to make public the fact that it is jealousy for the beauty

of our friend that is the real cause, to give that as the reason for

estrangement would be to charge us with envy, a pleasure one woman

will not give another; she prefers injustice. Whenever it happens

that two beautiful women are so happy as to find a pretext to get rid

of each other, they seize upon it with vivacity, and hate each other

with a cordiality which proves how much they loved each other before

the rupture.

Well, Marquis, am I talking to you with sufficient frankness? You see

to what lengths my sincerity goes. I try to give you just ideas of

everything, even at my own expense, for I am assuredly not more exempt

than another woman from the faults I sometimes criticise. But as I am

sure that what passes between us will be buried in oblivion, I do not

fear embroiling myself in a quarrel with all my sex, they might,

perhaps, claim the right to blame my ingenuity.

But the Countess is above all such petty things, she agrees, however,

with everything I have just said. Are there many women like her?

XL

Oratory and Fine Phrases do Not Breed Love

The example of the Marquise has not yet had any effect on the heart of

her friend. It appears, on the contrary, that she is more on guard

against you, and that you have drawn upon yourself her reproaches

through some slight favor you have deprived her of.

I have been thinking that she would not fail on this occasion to

recall to your recollection, the protestations of respect and

disinterestedness you made when you declared your passion for her. It

is customary in similar cases. But what seems strange about it is,

that the same eagerness that a woman accepts as a proof of disrespect,

before she is in perfect accord with her lover, becomes, in her

imagination, a proof of love and esteem, as soon as they meet on a

common ground.

Listen to married women, and to all those who, being unmarried, permit

the same prerogatives; hear them, I say, in their secret complaints

against unfaithful husbands and cooling lovers. They are despised, and

that is the sole reason they can imagine. But with us, what they

consider a mark of esteem and sincerity, is it anything else than the

contrary? I told you some time ago, that women themselves, when they

are acting in good faith, go farther than men in making love consist

in an effervescence of the blood. Study a lover at the commencement of

her passion: with her, then, love is purely a metaphysical sentiment,

with which the senses have not the least relation. Similar to those

philosophers who, in the midst of grievous torments would not confess

that they were suffering pain, she is a martyr to her own system; but,

at last, while combatting this chimera, the poor thing becomes

affected by a change; her lover vainly repeats that love is a divine,

metaphysical sentiment, that it lives on fine phrases, on spiritual

discourses, that it would be degrading to mingle with it anything

material and human; he vainly, boasts of his respect and refinement. I

tell you, Marquis, on the part of all women, that such an orator will

never make his fortune. His respect will be taken as an insult, his

refinement for derision, and his fine discourses for ridiculous

pretexts. All the grace that will be accorded him, is that she will

find a pretext to quarrel with him because he has been less refined

with some other woman, and that he will be put to the sorrowful

necessity of displaying his high flown sentiments to his titular

mistress, and what is admirable about this is, that the excuse for it

arises out of the same principle.

P.S.--You have so much deference for my demands! You not only show my

letters to M. de la Rochefoucauld, but you read them before the whole

assembly of my friends. It is true that the indulgence with which my

friends judge them, consoles me somewhat for your indiscretion, and I

see very well that the best thing for me to do is to continue on in my

own way as I have in the past. But, at least, be discreet when I

mention matters relating to the glory of the Countess; otherwise, no

letters.

XLI

Discretion Is Sometimes the Better Part of Valor

No, Marquis, I can not pardon in you the species of fury with which

you desire what you are pleased to call the "supreme happiness." How

blind you are, not to know that when you are sure of a woman's heart,

it is in your interests to enjoy her defeat a long time before it

becomes entire. Will you never understand, that of all there is good

on earth, it is the sweetness of love that must be used with the

greatest economy?

If I were a man and were so fortunate as to have captured the heart of

a woman like the Countess, with what discretion I would use my

advantages? How many gradations there would be in the law I should

impose upon myself to overlook them successively and even leisurely?

Of how many amiable pleasures, unknown to men, would not I be the

creator? Like a miser, I would contemplate my treasure unceasingly,

learn its precious value, feel that in it consisted all my felicity,

base all my happiness upon the possession of it, reflect that it is

all mine, that I may dispose of it and yet maintain my resolution not

to deprive myself of its use.

What a satisfaction to read in the eyes of an adorable woman the power

you have over her; to see her slightest acts give birth to an

impression of tenderness, whenever they relate to you; to hear her

voice soften when it is to you or of you she speaks; to enjoy her

confusion at your slightest eagerness, her anxiety at your most

innocent caresses? Is there a more delicious condition than that of a

lover who is sure of being loved, and can there be any sweeter than at

such moments? What a charm for a lover to be expected with an

impatience that is not concealed; to be received with an eagerness all

the more flattering from the effort made to hide the half of it?

She dresses in a fashion to please; she assumes the deportment, the

style, the pose that may flatter her lover the most. In former times

women dressed to please in general, now their entire toilette is to

please men; for his sake she wears bangles, jewelry, ribbons,

bracelets, rings. He is the object of it all, the woman is transformed

into the man; it is he she loves in her own person. Can you find

anything in love more enchanting than the resistance of a woman who

implores you not to take advantage of her weakness? Is there anything,

in a word, more seductive than a voice almost stifled with emotion,

than a refusal for which she reproaches herself, and, the rigor of

which she attempts to soften by tender looks, before a complaint is

made? I can not conceive any.

But it is certain that as soon as she yields to your eagerness, all

these pleasures weaken in proportion to the facility met. You alone

may prolong them, even increase them, by taking the time to know all

the sweetness and its taste. However, you are not satisfied unless

the possession, be entire, easy, and continuous. And after that, you

are surprised to find indifference, coolness, and inconstancy in your

heart. Have you not done everything to satiate your passion for the

beloved object? I have always contended that love never dies from

desire but often from indigestion, and I will sometime tell you in

confidence my feelings for Count ----. You will understand from that

how to manage a passion to render happiness enduring; you will see

whether I know the human heart and true felicity; you will learn from

my example that the economy of the sentiments is, in the question of

love, the only reasonable metaphysics. In fine, you will know how

little you understand your true interests in your conduct toward the

Countess. To interfere with your projects, I shall be with her as

often as it is possible. Now, do not be formal, and tell me that I am

an advocate on both sides; for I am persuaded that I am acting for the

good of the parties interested.

XLII

Surface Indications in Women are Not Always Guides

What, I censure you, Marquis? I will take good care not to do so, I

assure you. You have not been willing to follow my advice, and hence,

I am not at all sorry for having ill-used you. You thought you had

nothing to do but to treat the Countess roughly. Her easy fashion of

treating love, her accessibility, her indulgence for your numerous

faults, the freedom with which she mocks the Platonicians, all this

encouraged you to hope that she was not very severe, but you have just

discovered your mistake. All this outward show was nothing but

deceitful and perfidious allurements. To take advantage thus of the

good faith of any one--I must confess that it is a conduct which cries

for vengeance; she deserves all the names you give her.

But do you wish me to talk to you with my customary frankness? You

have fallen into an error which is common among men. They judge women

from the surface. They imagine that a woman whose virtue is not always

on the qui vive, will be easier to overcome than a prude; even

experience does not undeceive them. How often are they exposed to a

severity all the keener that it was unexpected? Their custom then, is

to accuse women of caprice and oddity; all of you use the same

language, and say: Why such equivocal conduct? When a woman has

decided to remain intractable, why surprise the credulity of a lover?

Why not possess an exterior conformable to her sentiments? In a word,

why permit a man to love her, when she does not care ever to see him

again? Is this not being odd and false? Is it not trifling with

sentiment?

You are in error, gentlemen, you are imposing upon your vanity, it is

in vain you try to put us on a false scent, that, of itself, is

offensive, and you talk of sentiment as ennobling a thing that

resembles it very little. Are not you, yourselves, to blame if we

treat you thus? However little intelligence a woman may have, she

knows that the strongest tie to bind you to her is anticipation,

wherefore, you must let her lay the blame on you. If she were to arm

herself from the first with a severity that would indicate that she is

invincible, from that time, no lovers for her. What a solitude would

be hers, what shame even? For a woman of the most pronounced virtue is

no less sensible of the desire to please, she makes her glory consist

in securing homage and adoration. But without ignoring the fact that

those she expects attention from are induced to bestow them only for

reasons that wound her pride; unable to reform this defect, the only

part she can take is to use it to her advantage to keep them by her

side; she knows how to keep them, and not destroy the very hopes

which, however, she is determined never to gratify. With care and

skill she succeeds. Hence, as soon as a woman understands her real

interests she does not fail to say to herself what the Countess

confessed to me at our last interview:

"I can well appreciate the 'I love you' of the men; I do not disguise

the fact that I know what it signifies at bottom, therefore upon me

rests the burden of being offended at hearing them; but when women

have penetrated their motives, they have need of their vanity to

disconcert their designs. Our anger, when they have offended us, is

not the best weapon to use in opposing them. Whoever must go outside

herself and become angry to resist them, exposes her weakness. A fine

irony, a piquant raillery, a humiliating coolness, these are what

discourage them. Never a quarrel with them, consequently no

reconciliation. What advantages does not this mode of procedure take

from them!

"The prude, it is true, follows a quite different method. If she is

exposed to the least danger, she does not imagine herself to be

reasonable but in proportion to the resentment she experiences; but

upon whom does such conduct impose? Every man who knows the cards,

says to himself: 'I am ill used because the opportunity is

unfavorable. It is my awkwardness that is punished and not my

temerity. Another time, that will be well received which is a crime

to-day; this severity is a notice to redouble my effort, to merit more

indulgence and disarm pride; she wishes to be appeased.' And the only

means in such case to make her forget the offense is, that in making

an apology to repeat it a second time. With my recipe, I am certain

that a man will never reason that way.

"The Marquis, for example, has sometimes permitted me to read in his

eyes his respectful intentions. I never knew but one way to punish

him; I have feigned not to understand him; insensibly, I have diverted

his mind to other objects. And this recipe has worked well up to the

moment I last saw him at my house. There was no way to dissimulate

with him; he wished to honor me with some familiarities, and I stopped

him immediately, but not in anger. I deemed it more prudent to arm

myself with reason than with anger. I appeared to be more afflicted

than irritated, and I am sure my grief touched his heart more than

bitter reproaches which might have alarmed him. He went away very much

dissatisfied; and just see what the heart is: at first, I was afraid I

had driven him away forever, I was tempted to reproach myself for my

cruelty, but, upon reflection, I felt reassured. Has severity ever

produced inconstancy?"

To go on: We talked until we were out of breath, and everything the

Countess told me gave me to understand that she had made up her mind.

It will be in vain for you to cry out against her injustice, consider

her as odd and inhuman, she will not accept any of the sweetness of

love unless it costs her pride nothing, and I observe that she is

following that resolution with more firmness than I imagined her

capable of. The loss of your heart would undoubtedly be a misfortune

for which she could never be consoled. But, on the other hand, the

conditions you place upon your perseverance appear too hard to be

accepted; she is willing to compromise with you. She hopes to be able

to hold you without betraying her duty, a project worthy of her

courage, and I hope it will succeed better than the plan she had

formed to guarantee her heart against love. Let us await the outcome.

Shall we see you to-morrow at Madame la Presidente's? If you should

desire to have an occasion to speak to her, I do not doubt that you

will make your peace.

XLIII

Women Demand Respect

I should never have expected it, Marquis. What! My zeal in your behalf

has drawn your reproaches down upon me? I share with the Countess the

bad humor her severity has caused! you. Do you know? If what you say

were well founded, nothing could be more piquant for me than the

ironical tone in which you laud my principles. But to render me

responsible for your success, as you attempt, have you dared think for

an instant that my object in writing you, was ever for the purpose of

giving you lessons in seduction? Do you not perceive any difference in

teaching you to please, and exciting you toward seduction? I have told

you the motives which incline women to love, it is true, but have I

ever said that they were easier to vanquish? Have I ever told you to

attack them by sensuality, and that in attacking them to suppose them

without delicacy? I do not believe it.

When your inexperience and your timidity might cause you to play the

role of a ridiculous personage among women, I explained the harm these

defects might cause you in the world. I advised you to have more

confidence, in order to lead you insensibly in the direction of that

noble and respectful boldness you should have when with women. But as

soon as I saw that your pretensions were going too far, and that they

might wound the reputation of the Countess, I did not dissimulate, I

took sides against you, and nothing was more reasonable, I had become

her friend. You see, then, how unjust you are in my regard, and you

are no less so in regard to her. You treat her as if she were an

equivocal character. According to your idea, she has neither decided

for nor against gallantry, and what you clearly see in her conduct is,

that she is a more logical coquette than other women. What an opinion!

But there is much to pardon in your situation. However, a man without

prejudice, would see in the Countess only a lover as reasonable as she

is tender; a woman who, without having an ostentatious virtue,

nevertheless remains constantly attached to it; a woman, in a word,

who seeks in good faith the proper means of reconciling love and duty.

The difficulty in allying these two contraries is not slight, and it

is the source of the inequalities that wound you. Figure to yourself

the combats she must sustain, the revolutions she suffers, her

embarrassment in endeavoring to preserve a lover whom too uniform a

resistance might repel. If she were sure of keeping you by resisting

your advances; but you carry your odd conduct to the extent of leaving

her when her resistance is too prolonged. While praising our virtue,

you abandon us, and then, what shame for us! But since in both cases

it is not certain that her lover will be held, it is preferable to

accept the inconvenient rather than cause you to lose her heart and

her esteem.

That is our advice, for the Countess and I think precisely alike on

the subject. Be more equitable, Marquis; complain of her rather than

criticise her. If her character were more decided, perhaps you would

be better satisfied with her; but, even in that case would you be

satisfied very long? I doubt it.

Adieu. We count on seeing you this evening at Madame de La Fayette's,

and that you will prove more reasonable. The Abbé Gedoyn will be

presented me. The assembly will be brilliant, but you will doubtless

be bored, for you will not see the only object that can attract you,

and you will say of my apartment, what Malherbe so well says of the

garden of the Louvre:

"Mais quoi que vous ayez, vous n'avez point Caliste,

Et moi je ne vois rien, quand je ne la vois pas."

(Whatever you may have Caliste you have not got,

And I, I can see nothing when I see her not.)

XLIV

Why Love Grows Weak--Marshal de Saint-Evremond's Opinion

A calm has succeeded the storm, Marquis, and I see by your letter that

you are more satisfied with the Countess and with yourself. How

powerful logic is coming from the mouth of a woman we adore! You see

how the conduct of our friend has produced an opposite effect from

that of the Marquise; the severity of the former increasing your

esteem and love for her and the kindness of the Marquise making an

unfaithful lover out of the Chevalier. So it generally happens among

men, ingratitude is commonly the price of benefits. This misfortune,

however, is not always beyond the reach of remedies, and in this

connection I wish to give you the contents of a letter I received from

Monsieur de Saint-Evremond a few days ago. You are not ignorant of the

intimate relations that have always existed between us.

The young Count de ---- had just espoused Mademoiselle ----, of whom

he was passionately amorous. He complained one day to me that hymen

and the possession of the beloved object weakened every day, and often

destroyed the most tender love. We discussed the subject for a long

time, and as I happened to write to Saint-Evremond that day, I

submitted the question to him. This is his reply:

SAINT-EVREMOND TO MADEMOISELLE DE L'ENCLOS.

My opinion is exactly in line with yours, Mademoiselle; it is not

always, as some think, hymen or the possession of the loved object

which, of itself, destroys love, the true source of the

dissatisfaction that follows love is in the unintelligent manner of

economizing the sentiments, a possession too easy, complete, and

prolonged.

When we have yielded to the transports of a passion without reserve,

the tremendous shock to the soul can not fail quickly to leave it in a

profound solitude. The heart finds itself in a void which alarms and

chills it. We vainly seek outside of ourselves, the cause of the calm

which follows our fits of passion; we do not perceive that an equal

and more enduring happiness would have been the fruit of moderation.

Make an exact analysis of what takes place within you when you desire

anything. You will find that your desires are nothing but curiosity,

and this curiosity, which is one of the forces of the heart,

satisfied, our desires vanish. Whoever, therefore, would hold a spouse

or a lover, should leave him something to be desired, something new

should be expected every day for the morrow. Diversify his pleasures,

procure for him the charm of variety in the same object, and I will

vouch for his perseverance in fidelity.

I confess, however, that hymen, or what you call your "defeat," is, in

an ordinary woman, the grave of love. But then it is less upon the

lover that the blame falls, than upon her who complains of the cooling

of the passion; she casts upon the depravity of the heart what is due

to her own unskillfulness, and her lack of economy. She has expended

in a single day everything that might keep alive the inclination she

had excited. She has nothing more to offer to the curiosity of her

lover, she becomes always the same statue; no variety to be hoped for,

and her lover knows it well.

But in the woman I have in mind, it is the aurora of a lovelier day;

it is the beginning of the most satisfying pleasures. I understand by

effusions of the heart, those mutual confidences; those ingenuities,

those unexpected avowals, and those transports which excite in us the

certainty of creating an absolute happiness, and meriting all the

esteem of the person we love. That day is, in a word, the epoch when a

man of refinement discovers inexhaustible treasures which have always

been hidden from him; the freedom a woman acquires who brings into

play all the sentiments which constraint has held in reserve; her

heart takes a lofty flight, but one well under control. Time, far from

leading to loathing, will furnish new reasons for a greater love.

But, to repeat; I assume sufficient intelligence in her to be able to

control her inclination. For to hold a lover, it is not enough

(perhaps it is too much) to love passionately, she must love with

prudence, with restraint, and modesty is for that reason the most

ingenious virtue refined persons have ever imagined. To yield to the

impetuosity of an inclination; to be annihilated, so to speak, in the

object loved, is the method of a woman without discernment. That is

not love, it is a liking for a moment, it is to transform a lover into

a spoiled child. I would have a woman behave with more reserve and

economy. An excess of ardor is not justifiable in my opinion, the

heart being always an impetuous charger which must be steadily curbed.

If you do not use your strength with economy, your vivacity will be

nothing but a passing transport. The same indifference you perceive in

a lover, after those convulsive emotions, you, yourself, will

experience, and soon, both of you will feel the necessity of

separating.

To sum up; there is more intelligence required to love than is

generally supposed, and to be happy in loving. Up to the moment of the

fatal "yes," or if you prefer, up to the time of her defeat, a woman

does not need artifice to hold her lover. Curiosity excites him,

desire sustains him, hope encourages him. But once he reaches the

summit of his desires, it is for the woman to take as much care to

retain him, as he exhibited in overcoming her; the desire to keep him

should render her fertile in expedients; the heart is similar to a

high position, easier to obtain than to keep. Charms are sufficient to

make a man amorous; to render him constant, something more is

necessary; skill is required, a little management, a great deal of

intelligence, and even a touch of ill humor and fickleness.

Unfortunately, however, as soon as women have yielded they become too

tender, too complaisant. It would be better for the common good, if

they were to resist less in the beginning and more afterward. I

maintain that they never can forestall loathing without leaving the

heart something to wish for, and the time to consider.

I hear them continually complaining that our indifference is always

the fruit of their complaisance for us. They are ever recalling the

time when, goaded by love and sentiment, we spent whole days by their

side. How blind they are! They do not perceive that it is still in

their power to bring us back to an allegiance, the memory of which is

so dear. If they forget what they have already done for us, they will

not be tempted to do more; but if they make us forget, then we shall

become more exacting. Let them awaken our hearts by opposing new

difficulties, arousing our anxieties, in fine, forcing us to desire

new proofs of an inclination, the certainty of which diminishes its

value in our estimation. They will then find less cause of complaint

in us, and will be better satisfied with themselves.

Shall I frankly avow it? Things would indeed change, if women would

remember at the right time that their role is always that of the party

to be entreated, ours that of him who begs for new favors; that,

created to grant, they should never offer. Reserved, even in an

excess of passion, they should guard against surrendering at

discretion; the lover should always have something to ask, and

consequently, he would be always submissive so as to obtain it. Favors

without limit degrade the most seductive charms, and are, in the end,

revolting even to him who exacts them. Society puts all women on the

same level; the handsome and the ugly, after their defeat, are

indistinguishable except from their art to maintain their authority;

but what commonly happens? A woman imagines she has nothing further to

do than to be affectionate, caressing, sweet, of even temper and

faithful. She is right in one sense, for these qualities should be the

foundation of her character; they will not fail to draw esteem; but

these qualities, however estimable they may be, if they are not offset

by a shade of contrariety, will not fail to extinguish love, and bring

on languor and weariness, mortal poisons for the best constituted

heart.

Do you know why lovers become nauseated so easily when enjoying

prosperity? Why they are so little pleased after having had so much

pleasure? It is because both parties interested have an identically

erroneous opinion. One imagines there is nothing more to obtain, the

other fancies she has nothing more to give. It follows as a necessary

consequence that one slackens in his pursuit, and the other neglects

to be worthy of further advances, or thinks she becomes so by the

practice of solid qualities. Reason is substituted for love, and

henceforward, no more seasoning in their relations; no more of those

trifling quarrels so necessary to prevent dissatisfaction by

forestalling it.

But when I exact that evenness of temper should be animated by

occasional storms, do not be under the impression that I pretend

lovers should always be quarreling to preserve their happiness. I only

desire to impress it upon you, that all their misunderstandings should

emanate from love itself; that the woman should not forget (by a

species of pusillanimous kindness) the respect and attentions due her;

that by an excessive sensitiveness, she does not convert her love into

a source of anxiety capable of poisoning every moment of her

existence; that by a scrupulous fidelity, she may not render her lover

too sure that he has nothing to fear on that score.

Neither should a woman by a sweetness, an unalterable evenness of

temper, be weak enough to pardon everything lacking in her lover.

Experience demonstrates that women too often sacrifice the hearts of

their spouses or their lovers by too many indulgences and facilities.

What recklessness! They martyrize themselves by sacrificing

everything; they spoil them and convert them into ungrateful lovers.

So much generosity finally turns against themselves, and they soon

become accustomed to demand as a right what is granted them as a

favor.

You see women every day (even among those we despise with so much

reason), who reign with a scepter of iron, treat as slaves men who are

attached to them, debase them by force of controlling them. Well,

these are the women who are loved longer than the others. I am

persuaded that a woman of refinement, well brought up, would never

think of following such an example. That military manner is repugnant

to gentleness and morals, and lacks that decency which constitutes the

charm in things even remote from virtue. But let the reasonable woman

soften the clouds a trifle, there will always remain precisely what is

necessary to hold a lover.

We are slaves, whom too much kindness often renders insolent; we often

demand to be treated like those of the new world. But we have in the

bottom of our hearts a comprehension of justice, which tells us that

the governing hand bears down upon us sometimes for very good reasons,

and we take kindly to it.

Now, for my last word: In everything relating to the force and energy

of love, women should be the sovereigns; it is from them we hope for

happiness, and they will never fail to grant us that as soon as they

can govern our hearts with intelligence, moderate their own

inclinations, and maintain their own authority, without compromising

it and without abusing it.