say to me: The state of a
professional society woman may injure my reputation, and plunge me
into difficulties I seek to avoid. Is not that your thought? But do
you not know, Monsieur, that the most austere conduct does not guard a
woman from the shafts of malice? The opinion men give of women's
reputation, and the good and wrong ideas they acquire of us are always
equally false. It is prejudice, it is a species of fatality which
governs their judgment, so that our glory depends less upon a real
virtue than upon auspicious circumstances. The hope of filling an
honorable place in their imagination, ought not to be the sole
incentive to the practice of virtue, it should be the desire to have a
good opinion of ourselves, and to be able to say, whatever may be the
opinion of the public: I have nothing with which to reproach myself.
But, what matters it to what we owe our virtue, provided we have it?

"I was therefore convinced that I could not do better, when I
reappeared in the world, than to don the mask I deemed the most
favorable to my peace of mind and to my glory. I became closely
attached to the friend who aided me with her counsel. She is the
Marquise de ----, a relative. Our sentiments were in perfect accord.
We frequented the same society. Charity for our neighbors was truly
not our favorite virtue. We made our appearance in a social circle as
into a ball room, where we were the only masks. We indulged in all
sorts of follies, we goaded the absurd into showing themselves in
their true character. After having amused ourselves in this comedy,
we had not yet reached the limit of our pleasure, it was renewed in
private interviews. How absolutely idiotic the women appeared to us,
and the men, how vacuous, fatuous, and impertinent! If we found any
who could inspire fear in a woman's heart, that is, esteem, we broke
their heart by our airs, by affecting utter indifference for them, and
by the allurements we heaped upon those who deserved them the least.
By force of our experience, we came near believing, that in order to
be virtuous, it was necessary to frequent bad company.

"This course of conduct guaranteed us for a long time against the
snares of love, and saved us from the dreadful weariness a sad and
more mournful virtue would have spread over our lives. Frivolous,
imperious, bold, even coquettish if you will, in the presence of men,
but solid, reasonable, and virtuous in our own eyes, we were happy in
this chara