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.