XXV

Why Virtue Is So Often Overcome

My last letter has apparently scandalized you, Marquis.  You insist that it is not impossible to find virtuous women in our age of the world.  Well, have I ever said anything to the contrary?  Comparing women to besieged castles, have I ever advanced the idea that there were some that had not been taken?  How could I have said such a thing?  There are some that have never been besieged, so you perceive that I am of your opinion.  I will explain, however, so that there will be no more chicanery about the question.

Here is my profession of faith in this matter:  I firmly believe that there are good women who have never been attacked, or who have been wrongly attacked.

I further firmly believe that there are good women who have been attacked and well attacked, when they have had neither disposition, violent passions, liberty, nor a hated husband.

I have a mind at this point to put you in possession of a rather lively conversation on this particular point, while I was still very young, with a prude, whom an adventure of some brilliancy unmasked.  I was inexperienced then, and I was in the habit of judging others with that severity which every one is disposed to manifest until some personal fault has made us more indulgent toward our neighbors.  I had considered it proper to blame the conduct of this woman without mercy.  She heard of it.  I sometimes saw her at an aunt’s, and made preparations to attack her morals.  Before I had an opportunity she took the matter into her own hands, by taking me aside one day, and compelled me to submit to the following harangue, which I confess made a deep impression in my memory: 

“It is not for the purpose of reproaching you for the talk you have been making on my account, that I wish to converse with you in the absence of witnesses,” she explained, “it is to give you some advice, the truth and solidity of which you will one day appreciate.

“You have seen fit to censure my conduct with a severity, you have actually treated me with a disdain, which tells me how proud you are of the fact that you have never been taken advantage of.  You believe in your own virtue and that it will never abandon you.  This is a pure illusion of your amour propre, my dear child, and I feel impelled to enlighten your inexperience, and to make you understand, that far from being sure of that virtue which renders you so severe, you are not even sure that you have any at all.  This prologue astonishes you, eh?  Well, listen with attention, and you will soon be convinced of the truth whereof I speak.