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.