Chapter XXIII: Introduction: To Letters (5)

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.

XLV

What Favors Men Consider Faults

To explain in two words to your satisfaction, Marquis. This is what I think of the letter I sent you yesterday: For a woman to profit by the advice of Monsieur de Saint-Evremond it is requisite that she should be affected with only a mediocre fancy, and have excited the passion of love. However, we shall talk about that more at large whenever it may please you, now, I will take up what concerns you.

The sacrifice the Countess has exacted of you is well worth the price you put upon it. To renounce for her sake, a woman whose exterior proclaimed her readiness to accord you whatever favor you might be willing to ask; to renounce her publicly, in the presence of her rival, and with so little regard for her vanity, is an effort which naturally will not pass without a proportionate recompense. The Countess could not have found a happier pretext for giving you her portrait.

But to take a solemn day when the Marquise received at her home for the first time since her illness; to select a moment when the moneyed woman was taking up arms to make an assault of beauty upon a woman of rank; to speak to her merely in passing, to pretend to surrender yourself entirely to the pleasure of seeing her rival; to entertain the latter and become one of her party, is an outrage for which you will never be pardoned. Revenge will come quickly, and be as cruel as possible, you will see. It is I who guarantee it. Now for the second paragraph of your letter:

You ask me whether the last favor, or rather the last fault we can commit, is a certain proof that a woman loves you. Yes and no.

Yes, if you love the woman for whom you had your first passion, and she is refined and virtuous. But even in such a case, this proof will not be any more certain, or more flattering for you, than all the others she may have given you of her inclination. Whatever a woman may do when she loves, even things of the slightest essential nature in appearance are as much certain marks of her passion, as those greater things of which men are so proud. I will even add, that if this virtuous woman is of a certain disposition, the last favor will prove less than a thousand other small sacrifices you count for nothing, for then, on her own behalf less than on yours, she is too much interested in listening to you, for you to claim the glory of having persuaded her, although every one else would have been accorded the same favor.

I know a woman who permitted herself to be vanquished two or three times by men she did not love, and the man she really loved never obtained a single favor. It may happen, then, that the last favor proves nothing to him to whom it is granted. Whereas, on the contrary, it may happen that he owes the granting of it to the little regard had for him. Women never respect themselves more than with those they esteem, and you may be quite sure that it requires a very imperious inclination to cause a reasonable woman to forget herself in the presence of one whose disdain she dreads. Your pretended triumph, therefore, may originate in causes which, so far from being glorious for you, would humiliate you if you were aware of them.

We see, for example, a lover who may be repelled; the woman who loves him fears he will escape her to pay his addresses to another woman more accommodating; she does not wish to lose him, for it is always humiliating to be abandoned; she yields, because she is not aware of any other means of holding him. They say there is nothing to reproach in this. If he leaves her after that, at least he will be put in the wrong, for, since a woman becomes attached more by the favors she grants, she imagines the man will be forced into gratitude. What folly!

Women are actuated by different motives in yielding. Curiosity impels some, they desire to know what love is. Another woman, with few advantages of person or figure, would hold her lover by the attractions of pleasure. One woman is determined to make a conquest flattering to her vanity. Still another one surrenders to pity, opportunity, importunities, to the pleasure of taking revenge on a rival, or an unfaithful lover. How can I enumerate them all? The heart is so very strange in its vagaries, and the reasons and causes which actuate it are so curious and varied, that it is impossible to discover all the hidden springs that set it in motion. But if we delude ourselves as to the means of holding you, how often do men deceive themselves as to the proofs of our love? If they possessed any delicacy of discernment, they would find a thousand signs that prove more than the most signal favor granted.

Tell me, Marquis, what have I done to Monsieur de Coulanges? It is a month since he has set foot in my house. But I will not reproach him, I shall be very pleasant with him when he does come. He is one of the most amiable men I am acquainted with. I shall be very angry with you if you fail to bring him to me on my return from Versailles. I want him to sing me the last couplets he has composed, I am told they are charming.

XLVI

Why Inconstancy Is Not Injustice

It was too kind of you, Marquis, to have noticed my absence. If I did not write you during my sojourn in the country, it was because I knew you were happy, and that tranquilized me. I felt too, that it was necessary for love to be accorded some rights, as its reign is usually very short, and besides that, friendship not having any quarrel with love, I waited patiently an interval in your pleasure which would enable you to read my letters.

Do you know what I was doing while away? I amused myself by piecing out all the events liable to happen in the condition your society is now in. I foresaw the bickerings between the Countess and her rival, and I predicted they would end in an open rupture; I also guessed that the Marquise would not espouse the cause of the Countess, but would take up the other's quarrel. The moneyed woman is not quite so handsome as her rival, a decisive reason for declaring for her and backing her up without danger.

What will be the upshot of all this quarreling among these women? How many revolutions, Good Heavens! in so short a time! Your happiness seems to be the only thing that has escaped. You discover new reasons every day for loving and esteeming this amiable Countess. You believe that a woman of so much real merit, and with so interesting a figure, will become known more and more. Let nothing weaken the esteem you have always had for her. You have, it is true, obtained an avowal of her love for you, but is she less estimable for that? On the contrary, ought not her heart to augment in price in your eyes, in proportion to the certainty you have acquired that you are its sole possessor? Even if you shall have obtained proofs of her inclination we spoke about recently, do you think that gives you any right to underrate her?

I can not avoid saying it; men like you arouse my indignation every time they imagine they claim the right to lack in courtesy for my sex, and punish us for our weaknesses. Is it not the height of injustice and the depth of depravity to continue to insult the grief which is the cause of their changes? Can not women be inconstant without being unjust? Is their distaste always to be followed by some injurious act? If we are guilty, is it the right of him who has profited by our faults, who is the cause of them, to punish us?

Always maintain for the Countess the sentiments you have expressed in her regard. Do not permit a false opinion to interfere with the progress which they can still make in your heart. It is not our defeat alone which should render us despicable in your eyes. The manner in which we have been defended, delivered, and guarded, ought to be the only measure of your disdain.

So Madame de La Fayette is of the opinion that my last letter is based upon rather a liberal foundation? You see where your indiscretions lead me. But she does not consider that I am no more guilty than a demonstrator of anatomy. I analyse the metaphysical man as he dissects the physical one. Do you believe that out of regard to scruples he should omit in his operations those portions of his subject which might offer corrupted minds occasions to draw sallies out of an ill regulated imagination? It is not the essence of things that causes indecency; it is not the words, or even the ideas, it is the intent of him who utters them, and the depravity of him who listens. Madame de La Fayette was certainly the last woman in the world whom I would have suspected of reproaching me in that manner, and to-morrow, at the Countess', I will make her confess her injustice.

XLVII

Cause of Quarrels Among Rivals

What, I, Marquis, astonished at the new bickerings of your moneyed woman? Do not doubt for an instant that she employs all the refinements of coquetry to take you away from the Countess. She may have a liking for you, but moderate your amour propre so far as that is concerned, for the most powerful motive of her conduct, is, without contradiction, the desire for revenge. Her vanity is interested in punishing her rival for having obtained the preference.

Women never pardon such a thing as that, and if he who becomes the subject of the quarrel is not the first object of their anger, it is because they need him to display their resentment. You have encountered in the rival of the Countess precisely what you exacted from her to strengthen your attachment. You are offered in advance the price of the attentions you devote to her, and from which you will soon be dispensed, and I think you will have so little delicacy as to accept them. It is written across the heart of every man: "To the easiest."

You should blush to deserve the least reproach from the Countess. What sort of a woman is it you seem to prefer to her? A woman without delicacy and without love; a woman who is guided only by the attractions of pleasure; more vain than sensible; more voluptuous than tender; more passionate than affectionate, she seeks, she cherishes in you nothing but your youth and all the advantages that accompany it.

You know what her rival is worth; you know all your wrong doing with her; you agree that you are a monster of ingratitude, yet, you are unwilling to take it upon yourself to merit her pardon. Truly, Marquis, I do not understand you. I am beginning to believe that Madame de Sévigné was right when she said that her son knew his duty very well, and could reason like a philosopher on the subject, but that he was carried away by his passions, so that "he is not a head fool, but a heart fool" (ce n'est pas par la tête qu'il est fou, mais par le coeur).

You recall in vain what I said to you long ago about making love in a free and easy manner. You will remember that I was then enjoying myself with some jocular reflections which were not intended to be formal advice. Do not forget, either, that the question then was about a mere passing fancy, and not of an ordinary mistress. But the case to-day is very different, you can not find among all the women of Paris, a single one who can be compared with her you are so cruelly abandoning. And for what reason? Because her resistance wounds your vanity. What resource is left us to hold you?

I agree with you, nevertheless, that when a passion is extinguished it can not be relighted without difficulty. No one is more the master of loving than he is of not loving. I feel the truth of all these maxims; I do homage to them with regret, as soon as, with a knowledge of the cause, I consider that you reject what is excellent and accept the worse; you renounce a solid happiness, durable pleasures, and yield to depraved tastes and pure caprices; but I can see that all my reflections will not reform you. I am beginning to fear that I am wearying you with morals, and to tell you the truth, it is very ridiculous in me to preach constancy when it is certain that you do not love, and that you are a heart fool.

I therefore abandon you to your destiny, without, however, giving up my desire to follow you into new follies. Why: should I be afflicted? Would it be of any moment to assume with you the tone of a pedagogue? Assuredly not, both of us would lose too much thereby. I should become weary and you would not be reformed.

XLVIII

Friendship Must Be Firm

I do not conceal it, Marquis, your conduct in regard to the Countess had put me out of patience with you, and I was tempted to break off all my relations with so wicked a man as you. My good nature in yielding to your entreaties inclines me to the belief that my friendship for you borders on a weakness. You are right, though. To be your friend only so long as you follow my advice would not be true friendship. The more you are to be censured the stronger ought to be my hold on you, but you will understand that one is not master of his first thoughts. Whatever effort I may make to find you less guilty, the sympathy I have for the misfortune of my friend is of still greater importance to me. There were moments when I could not believe in your innocence, and they were when so charming a woman complained of you. Now that her situation is improving every day, I consider my harshness in my last letter almost as a crime.

I shall, hereafter, content myself with pitying her without importuning you any longer about her. So let us resume our ordinary gait, if it please you. You need no longer fear my reproaches, I see they would be useless as well as out of place.

XLIX

Constancy Is a Virtue Among the Narrow Minded

You did not then know, Marquis, that it is often more difficult to get rid of a mistress than to acquire one? You are learning by experience. Your disgust for the moneyed woman does not surprise me except that it did not happen sooner.

What! knowing her character so well, you could imagine that the despair she pretended at the sight of your indifference increasing every day, could be the effect of a veritable passion? You could also be the dupe of her management! I admire, and I pity your blindness.

But was it not also vanity which aided a trifle in fortifying your illusion? In truth it would be a strange sort of vanity, that of being loved by such a woman; but men are so vain, that they are flattered by the love of the most confirmed courtesan. In any case undeceive yourself. A woman who is deserted, when she is a woman like your beauty, has nothing in view in her sorrow but her own interest. She endeavors by her tears and her despair, to persuade you that your person and your merit are all she regrets; that the loss of your heart is the summit of misfortune; that she knows nobody who can indemnify her for the loss of it. All these sentiments are false. It is not an afflicted lover who speaks; it is a vain woman, desperate at being anticipated, exasperated at the lack of power in her charms, worrying over a plan to replace you promptly, anxious to give herself an appearance of sensibility, and to appear worthy of a better fate. She justifies this thought of Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld: "Women do not shed tears over the lovers they have had, so much because they loved them, as to appear more worthy of being loved." It is for D---- to enjoy the sentiment.

She must indeed, have a very singular idea of you to hope that she can impose upon you. Do you wish to know what she is? The Chevalier is actually without an affair of the heart on hand, engage him to take your place. I have not received two letters from you that do not speak of the facility with which she will be consoled for having lost you. A woman of her age begins to fear that she will not recover what she has lost, and so she is obliged to degrade her charms by taking the first new comer. Perhaps her sorrow is true, but she deceives you as to the motives she gives for it. Break these chains without scruple. In priding yourself on your constancy and delicacy for such an object, you appear to me to be as ridiculous as you were when you lacked the same qualities on another occasion.

Do you remember, Marquis, what Monsieur de Coulanges said to us one day? "Constancy is the virtue of people of limited merit. Have they profited by the caprice of an amiable woman to establish themselves in her heart? the sentiment of medicrioty fixes them there, it intimidates them, they dare not make an effort to please others. Too happy at having surprised her heart, they are afraid of abandoning a good which they may not find elsewhere, and, as an instant's attention to their little worth might undeceive this woman, what do they then do? They elevate constancy up among the virtues; they transform love into a superstition; they know how to interest reason in the preservation of a heart which they owe only to caprice, occasion, or surprise." Be on your guard against imitating these shallow personages. Hearts are the money of gallantry; amiable people are the assets of society, whose destiny is to circulate in it and make many happy. A constant man is therefore as guilty as a miser who impedes the circulation in commerce. He possesses a treasure which he does not utilize, and of which there are so many who would make good use of it.

What sort of a mistress is that who is retained by force of reason? What languor reigns in her society, what violence must one not employ to say there is love when it has ceased to exist? It is seldom that passion ceases in both parties at the same time, and then constancy is a veritable tyrant; I compare it to the tyrant of antiquity who put people to death by tying them to dead bodies. Constancy condemns us to the same punishment. Discard such a baleful precedent to the liberty of association.

Believe me, follow your tastes, for the court lady you mentioned; she may weary you at times, it is true, but at least she will not degrade you. If, as you say, she is as little intelligent as she is beautiful, her reign will soon be over. Your place in her heart will soon be vacant, and I do not doubt that another or even several other gallantries will follow yours. Perhaps you will not wait for the end, for I see by your letter that you are becoming a man of fashion. The new system you have adopted makes it certain, nothing can be better arranged. Never finish one affair without having commenced another; never withdraw from the first except in proportion as the second one progresses. Nothing can be better, but in spite of such wise precautions, you may find yourself destitute of any, as, for example, some event beyond the reach of human foresight may interfere with these arrangements, may have for principle always to finish with all the mistresses at once, before enabling you to find any one to keep you busy during the interregnum. I feel free to confess, Marquis, that such an arrangement is as prudent as can be imagined, and I do not doubt that you will be well pleased with a plan so wisely conceived. Adieu.

I do not know where I obtain the courage to write you such long and foolish letters. I find a secret charm in entertaining you, which I should suspect if I did not know my heart so well. I have been reflecting that it is now without any affair, and I must henceforth be on my guard against you, for you have very often thought proper to say very tender things to me, and I might think proper to believe in their sincerity.

L

Some Women Are Very Cunning

You may derive as much amusement out of it as you wish, Marquis, but I shall continue to tell you that you are not fascinated by Madame la Presidente. Believe me when I say that I see more clearly into your affairs than you do yourself. I have known a hundred good men who, like you, pretended with the best faith in the world that they were amorous, but who, in truth were not in any manner whatsoever.

There are maladies of the heart as well as maladies of the body; some are real and some are imaginary. Not everything that attracts you toward a woman is love. The habit of being together, the convenience of seeing each other, to get away from one's self, the necessity for a little gallantry, the desire to please, in a word, a thousand other reasons which do not resemble a passion in the least; these are what you generally take to be love, and the women are the first to fortify this error. Always flattered by the homage rendered them, provided their vanity profits by it, they rarely inquire into the motives to which they owe it. But, after all, are they not right? They would nearly always lose by it.

To all the motives of which I have just spoken, you can add still another, quite as capable of creating an illusion in the nature of your sentiments. Madame la Presidente is, without contradiction, the most beautiful woman of our time; she is newly married; she refused the homage of the most amiable man of our acquaintance. Perhaps nothing could be more flattering to your vanity than to make a conquest which would not fail to give you the kind of celebrity to which you aspire. That, my dear Marquis, is what you call love, and it will be difficult for you to disabuse yourself of the impression, for by force of persuading yourself that it is love, you will, in a short time firmly believe that the inclination is real. It will be a very singular thing some day, to see with what dignity you will speak of your pretended sentiments; with what good faith you will believe that they deserve recognition, and, what will be still more agreeable, will be the deference you will believe should be their due. But unfortunately, the result will undeceive you, and you will then be the first to laugh at the importance with which you treated so silly an affair.

Shall I tell you how far injustice reaches? I am fully persuaded that you will not become more amorous. Henceforth, you will have nothing but a passing taste, frivolous relations, engagements, caprices; all the arrows of love will glance from you. It is true you will not experience its pangs, but will you enjoy, in the least, its sweetness? Can you hope ever to recover from the fantasies to which you surrender yourself, those moments of delight which were formerly your supreme felicity? I have no desire to flatter you, but I believe it my duty to do you this much justice: Your heart is intended for refined pleasures. It is not I who hold you responsible for the dissipation in which you are plunged, it is the young fools around you. They call enjoyment the abuse they make of pleasure; their example carries you away. But this intoxication will be dissipated sooner or later, and you will soon, see, at least I hope so, that you have been deceived in two ways in the state of your heart. You thought it was fascinated by Madame la Presidente, you will recognize your mistake; you thought she had ceased to have an inclination for--but I hold to the words I have uttered. Perhaps there will come a time when I shall be at liberty to express my thoughts more freely. Now, I reply to the remainder of your letter.

Confess it, Marquis, that you had little else to do this morning when you re-read my letters. I add that you must have been in a bad humor to undertake their criticism. Some brilliant engagement, some flattering rendezvous was wanting. But I do not care to elude the difficulty. So I seem to contradict myself sometimes? If I were to admit that it might very well be; if I were to give you the same answer that Monsieur de la Bruyère gave his critics the other day: "It is not I who contradict myself, it is the heart upon which I reason," could you reasonably conclude from it that everything I have said to you is false? I do not believe it.

But how do I know, in effect, if, led away by the various situations in which you were placed, I may not have appeared to destroy what I had advanced on different occasions? How do I know, if, seeing you ready to yield to a whim, I may not have carried too far, truths, which, feebly uttered, would not, perhaps, have brought you back? How do I know, in a word, if, being interested in the happiness of a friend, the desire to serve her may not have sometimes diminished my sincerity? I think I am very good natured to reply seriously to the worries you have caused me. Ought I not first to take cognizance of the fact that there is more malice in your letter than criticism? This will be the last time you will have an opportunity to abuse my simplicity. I am going to console myself for your perfidy with some one who is assuredly not so wicked as you.