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.