Julie is much less displeasing, partly perhaps for the reason that she belongs to the less displeasing sex.  At least, she preserves fortitude, self-control, and profound considerateness for others.  At a certain point her firmness even moves a measure of enthusiasm.  If the New Heloisa could be said to have any moral intention, it is here where women learn from the example of Julie’s energetic return to duty, the possibility and the satisfaction of bending character back to comeliness and honour.  Excellent as this is from a moral point of view, the reader may wish that Julie had been less of a preacher, as well as less of a sinner.  And even as sinner, she would have been more readily forgiven if she had been less deliberate.  A maiden who sacrifices her virtue in order that the visible consequences may force her parents to consent to a marriage, is too strategical to be perfectly touching.  As was said by the cleverest, though not the greatest, of all the women whose youth was fascinated by Rousseau, when one has renounced the charms of virtue, it is at least well to have all the charms that entire surrender of heart can bestow.[46] In spite of this, however, Julie struck the imagination of the time, and struck it in a way that was thoroughly wholesome.  The type taught men some respect for the dignity of women, and it taught women a firmer respect for themselves.  It is useless, even if it be possible, to present an example too lofty for the comprehension of an age.  At this moment the most brilliant genius in the country was filling France with impish merriment at the expense of the greatest heroine that France had then to boast.  In such an atmosphere Julie had almost the halo of saintliness.

We may say all we choose about the inconsistency, the excess of preaching, the excess of prudence, in the character of Julie.  It was said pungently enough by the wits of the time.[47] Nothing that could be said on all this affected the fact, that the women between 1760 and the Revolution were intoxicated by Rousseau’s creation to such a pitch that they would pay any price for a glass out of which Rousseau had drunk, they would kiss a scrap of paper that contained a piece of his handwriting, and vow that no woman of true sensibility could hesitate to consecrate her life to him, if she were only certain to be rewarded by his attachment.[48] The booksellers were unable to meet the demand.  The book was let out at the rate of twelve sous a volume, and the volume could not be detained beyond an hour.  All classes shared the excitement, courtiers, soldiers, lawyers, and bourgeois.[49] Stories were told of fine ladies, dressed for the ball, who took the book up for half an hour until the time should come for starting; they read until midnight, and when informed that the carriage waited, answered not a word, and when reminded by and by that it was two o’clock, still read on, and then at four, having ordered the horses to be taken out of the carriage, disrobed, went to bed, and passed