its by which man may earn his salvation to only one, the _Political_
merit of which we have spoken, that of serving Rome.

What must the world give up in its turn?

The world (by far the most worldly part of the world, woman) will have
to give up her best possessions, her family and her domestic hearth.
Eve once more betrays Adam. Woman deceives man in her husband and son.

Thus every one sold his God. Rome bartered away religion, and woman
domestic piety.

The weak minds of women after the great corruption of the sixteenth
century, spoiled beyond all remedy, full of passion, fear, and wicked
desires mingled with remorse, seized greedily the means of sinning
conscientiously, of expiating without either amendment, amelioration,
or return towards God. They thought themselves happy to receive at the
Confessional, by way of penance, some little political commission, or
the management of some intrigue. They transferred to this singular
manner of expiating their faults the very violence of the guilty
passions, for which the atonement was to be made; and in order to
remain sinful, they were often obliged to commit crimes.[2]

The passion of woman, inconstant in everything else, was in this case
sustained by the vigorous obstinacy of the mysterious and invisible
hand that urged her forward. Under this impulse, at once gentle and
strong, ardent and persevering, firm as iron and as dissolving as fire,
characters and even interests at length gave way.

Some examples will help us to understand it the better. In France, old
Lesdiguieres was politically, much interested in remaining a
Protestant; as such, he was the head man of the party. The king rather
than the governor of Dauphine, he assisted the Swiss, and protected the
populations of Vaud and Romand against the house of Savoy. But the old
man's daughter was gained over by Father Cotton. She set to work upon
her father with patience and address, and succeeded in inducing him to
quit his high position for an empty title, and change his religion for
the title of Constable.

In Germany the character of Ferdinand I., his interest, and the part he
had to play, would have induced him to remain moderate, and not become
the vassal of his nephew, Philip II. With violence and fanaticism he
had no choice but to accept a secondary place. The emperor's
daughters, however, intrigued so well that the house of Austria became
united by marriage to the houses of Lorraine and Bav