These are assuredly very serious exceptions, Marquis, but are they well grounded?  I do not think so.  I see with pain that Madame de Sevigne has not read my letters in the spirit I wrote them.  What, I the founder of systems?  Truly, she does me too much honor, I have never been serious enough to devise any system.  Besides, according to my notion, a system is nothing but a philosophic dream, and therefore does she consider all I have told you as a play of the imagination?  In that case, we are very far out of our reckoning.  I do not imagine, I depict real objects.  I would have one truth acknowledged, and to accomplish that, my purpose is not to surprise the mind; I consult the sentiments.  Perhaps she has been struck by the singularity of some of my propositions, which appeared to me so evident that I did not think it worth while to maintain them; but is it necessary to make use of a mariner’s compass to develop the greater or less amount of truth in a maxim of gallantry?

Moreover, I have such a horror of formal discussions, that I would prefer to agree to anything rather than engage in them.  Madame de Sevigne, you say, is acquainted with a number of female metaphysicians—­there! there!  I will grant her these exceptions, provided she leaves me the general thesis.  I will even admit, if you so desire, that there are certain souls usually styled “privileged,” for I have never heard anybody deny the virtues of temperament.  So, I have nothing to say about women of that species.  I do not criticise them, nor have I any reproaches to make them; neither do I believe it my duty to praise them, it is sufficient to congratulate them.  However, if you investigate them you will discover the truth of what I have been saying since the commencement of our correspondence:  the heart must be occupied with some object.  If nature does not incline them in that direction, no one can lead them in the direction of gallantry, their affection merely changes its object.  Such a one to-day appears to be insensible to the emotion of love, only because she has disposed of all that portion of the sentiment she had to give.  The Count de Lude, it is said, was not always indifferent to Madame de Sevigne.  Her extreme tenderness for Madame Grignan (her daughter), however, occupies her entire time at present.  According to her, I am very much at fault concerning women?  In all charity I should have disguised the defects which I have discovered in my sex, or, if you prefer to have it that way, which my sex have discovered in me.

But, do you really believe, Marquis, that if everything I have said on this subject be made public, the women would be offended?  Know them better, Marquis; all of them would find there what is their due.  Indeed, to tell them that it is purely a mechanical instinct which inclines them to flirt, would not that put them at their ease?  Does it not seem to be restoring to favor that fatality, those expressions of sympathy, which they are so delighted to give as excuses for their mistakes, and in which I have so little faith?  Granting that love is the result of reflection, do you not see what a blow you are giving their vanity?  You place upon their shoulders the responsibility far their good or bad choice.