One more thrust, Marquis:  I am not mistaken when I say that all women would be satisfied with my letters.  The female metaphysicians, that is, those women whom Heaven has favored with a fortunate constitution, would take pleasure in recognizing in them their superiority over other women; they would not fail to congratulate themselves upon the delicacy of their own sentiments, and to consider them as works of their own creation.  Those whom nature built of less refined material, would without doubt owe me some gratitude for revealing a secret which was weighing upon them.  They have made it a duty to disguise their inclinations, and they are as anxious not to fail in this duty as they are careful not to lose anything on the pleasure side of the question.  Their interest, therefore, is, to have their secret guessed without being compromised.  Whoever shall develop their hearts, will not fail to render them an essential service.  I am even fully convinced that those women, who at heart, profess sentiments more comformable to mine, would be the first to consider it an honor to dispute them.  Hence, I would be paying my court to women in two fashions, which would be equally agreeable:  In adopting the maxims which flatter their inclinations, and in furnishing them with an occasion to appear refined.

After all, Marquis, do you think it would betray a deep knowledge of women, to believe that they could be offended with the malicious talk I have been giving you about them?  Somebody said a long time ago, that women would rather have a little evil said of them than not be talked about at all You see therefore, that even supposing that I have written you in the intention with which I am charged, they would be very far from being able to reproach me in the slightest degree.

Finally, Madame de Sevigne pretends that my “system” might become a precedent.  Truly, Marquis, I do not understand how, with the justice for which she is noted, she was able to surrender to such an idea.  In stripping love, as I have, of everything liable to seduce you, in making it out to be the effect of temperament, caprice, and vanity; in a word, in undeceiving you concerning the metaphysics that lend it grandeur and nobility, is it not evident that I have rendered it less dangerous?  Would it not be more dangerous, if, as pretends Madame de Sevigne, it were to be transformed into a virtue?  I would willingly compare my sentiments with those of the celebrated legislator of antiquity, who believed the best means of weakening the power of women over his fellow citizens was to expose their nakedness.  But I wish to make one more effort in your favor.  Since I am regarded as a woman with a system, it will be better for me to submit to whatever such a fine title exacts.  Let us reason, therefore, for a moment upon gallantry according to the method which appertains only to serious matters.