taken place in his father’s house, and certainly he would not have acquired these maxims and this tone at home?  The first charms of sense?  On the contrary; those who are beginning to abandon themselves to these pleasures are timid and anxious, they shun the light and noise.  The first pleasures are always mysterious, modesty gives them their savour, and modesty conceals them; the first mistress does not make a man bold but timid.  Wholly absorbed in a situation so novel to him, the young man retires into himself to enjoy it, and trembles for fear it should escape him.  If he is noisy he knows neither passion nor love; however he may boast, he has not enjoyed.

These changes are merely the result of changed ideas.  His heart is the same, but his opinions have altered.  His feelings, which change more slowly, will at length yield to his opinions and it is then that he is indeed corrupted.  He has scarcely made his entrance into society before he receives a second education quite unlike the first, which teaches him to despise what he esteemed, and esteem what he despised; he learns to consider the teaching of his parents and masters as the jargon of pedants, and the duties they have instilled into him as a childish morality, to be scorned now that he is grown up.  He thinks he is bound in honour to change his conduct; he becomes forward without desire, and he talks foolishly from false shame.  He rails against morality before he has any taste for vice, and prides himself on debauchery without knowing how to set about it.  I shall never forget the confession of a young officer in the Swiss Guards, who was utterly sick of the noisy pleasures of his comrades, but dared not refuse to take part in them lest he should be laughed at.  “I am getting used to it,” he said, “as I am getting used to taking snuff; the taste will come with practice; it will not do to be a child for ever.”

So a young man when he enters society must be preserved from vanity rather than from sensibility; he succumbs rather to the tastes of others than to his own, and self-love is responsible for more libertines than love.

This being granted, I ask you.  Is there any one on earth better armed than my pupil against all that may attack his morals, his sentiments, his principles; is there any one more able to resist the flood?  What seduction is there against which he is not forearmed?  If his desires attract him towards women, he fails to find what he seeks, and his heart, already occupied, holds him back.  If he is disturbed and urged onward by his senses, where will he find satisfaction?  His horror of adultery and debauch keeps him at a distance from prostitutes and married women, and the disorders of youth may always be traced to one or other of these.  A maiden may be a coquette, but she will not be shameless, she will not fling herself at the head of a young man who may marry her if he believes in her virtue; besides she is always under supervision.  Emile, too, will not be left entirely