No, Marquis, the curiosity of Madame de Sevigne has not offended me.  On the contrary, I am very glad that she wished to see the letters you receive from me.  Without doubt, she thought that if it were a question of gallantry, it could only be to my profit; she now knows the contrary.  She will also know that I am not so frivolous as she imagined, and I believe her just enough to form hereafter another idea of Ninon than the one she has heretofore had of her, for I am not ignorant of the fact that she does not speak of me much to my advantage.  But her injustice will never influence my friendship for you.  I am philosophic enough to console myself for not securing the commendation of people who judge me without knowing me.  Whatever may happen, I shall continue to talk to you with my ordinary frankness, and I am sure that Madame de Sevigne, in spite of her refined mind, will, at heart, be more of my opinion than she cares to show.  Now, I come to what relates to you.

Well, Marquis, after infinite care and trouble, you think you have at last softened that stony heart?  I am glad of it; but I laugh at your interpretation of the Countess’ sentiments.  You share with all men a common error which it is necessary to remove, however flattering it may be to you to foster it.  You believe, every one of you, that it is your worth alone that kindles passion in the heart of women, and that qualities of heart and mind are the causes of the love they feel toward you.  What a mistake!  You only think so, it is true, because your pride finds satisfaction in the thought.  But, if you can do so without prejudice, inquire into the motives that actuate you, and you will soon perceive that you are laboring under a delusion, and that we deceive you; that, everything well considered, you are the dupe of your vanity and of ours; that the worth of the person loved is only an excuse which gives an occasion for love, and is not the real cause.  Finally, that all this sublime by-play, which is paraded on both sides, is a mere preliminary which enters into the desire to satisfy the need I first indicated to you as the prime exciting cause of this passion.  I tell you this is a hard and humiliating truth, but it is none the less certain.  We women enter the world with this necessity of loving undefined, and if we take one man in preference to another, let us say so honestly, we yield less to the knowledge of merit than to a mechanical instinct which is nearly always blind.

For proof of this I need only refer to the foolish passions with which we sometimes become intoxicated for strangers, or at least for men with whom we are not sufficiently acquainted, to relieve our selection of them from the odium of imprudence from the beginning; in which case if there is a mutual response, well, it is pure chance.  We are always forming attachments without sufficient circumspection, hence I am not wrong in comparing love to an appetite which one sometimes feels for one kind of food rather than for another,