But I stuck to my proposition:  “You pretend then that our virtue does not depend upon ourselves, since you make it the puppet of occasion, and of other causes foreign to our own will?”

“There is no doubt about it,” she answered.  “Answer me this:  Can you give yourself a lively or sedate disposition?  Are you free to defend yourself against a violent passion?  Does it depend upon you to arrange all the circumstances of your life, so that you will never find yourself alone with a lover who adores you, who knows his advantages and how to profit by them?  Does it depend upon you to prevent his pleadings, I assume them to be innocent at first, from making upon your senses the impression they must necessarily make?  Certainly not; to insist upon such an anomaly would be to deny that the magnet is master of the needle.  And you pretend that your virtue is your own work, that you can personally claim the glory of an advantage that is liable to be taken from you at any moment?  Virtue in women, like all the other blessings we enjoy, is a gift from Heaven; it is a favor which Heaven may refuse to grant us.  Reflect then how unreasonable you are in glorifying in your virtue:  consider your injustice when you so cruelly abuse those who have had the misfortune to be born with an ungovernable inclination toward love, whom a sudden violent passion has surprised, or who have found themselves in the midst of circumstances out of which you would not have emerged with any greater glory.

“Shall I give you another proof of the justice of my ideas?  I will take it from your own conduct.  Are you not dominated by that deep persuasion that every woman who wishes to preserve her virtue, need never allow herself to be caught, that she must watch over the smallest trifles, because they lead to things of greater importance?  It is much easier for you to take from men the desire to make an attack upon your virtue by assuming a severe exterior, than to defend against their attacks.  The proof of this is in the fact that we give young girls in their education as little liberty as is possible in order to restrain them.  We do more:  a prudent mother does not rely upon her fear of dishonor, nor upon the bad opinion she has of men, she keeps her daughter out of sight; she puts it out of her power to succumb to temptation.  What is the excuse for so many precautions?  Because the mother fears the frailty of her pupil, if she is exposed for an instant to danger.

“In spite of all these obstacles with which she is curbed, how often does it not happen that love overcomes them all?  A girl well trained, or better, well guarded, laughs at her virtue, because she imagines it is all her own, whereas, it is generally a slave rigorously chained down, who thinks everybody is satisfied with him as long as he does not run away.  Let us inquire further into this:  In what class do you find abandoned females?  In that where they have not sufficient wealth or happiness constantly