lory of having persuaded
her, although every one else would have been accorded the same favor.

I know a woman who permitted herself to be vanquished two or three
times by men she did not love, and the man she really loved never
obtained a single favor. It may happen, then, that the last favor
proves nothing to him to whom it is granted. Whereas, on the contrary,
it may happen that he owes the granting of it to the little regard
had for him. Women never respect themselves more than with those they
esteem, and you may be quite sure that it requires a very imperious
inclination to cause a reasonable woman to forget herself in the
presence of one whose disdain she dreads. Your pretended triumph,
therefore, may originate in causes which, so far from being glorious
for you, would humiliate you if you were aware of them.

We see, for example, a lover who may be repelled; the woman who loves
him fears he will escape her to pay his addresses to another woman
more accommodating; she does not wish to lose him, for it is always
humiliating to be abandoned; she yields, because she is not aware of
any other means of holding him. They say there is nothing to reproach
in this. If he leaves her after that, at least he will be put in the
wrong, for, since a woman becomes attached more by the favors she
grants, she imagines the man will be forced into gratitude. What
folly!

Women are actuated by different motives in yielding. Curiosity impels
some, they desire to know what love is. Another woman, with few
advantages of person or figure, would hold her lover by the
attractions of pleasure. One woman is determined to make a conquest
flattering to her vanity. Still another one surrenders to pity,
opportunity, importunities, to the pleasure of taking revenge on a
rival, or an unfaithful lover. How can I enumerate them all? The heart
is so very strange in its vagaries, and the reasons and causes which
actuate it are so curious and varied, that it is impossible to
discover all the hidden springs that set it in motion. But if we
delude ourselves as to the means of holding you, how often do men
deceive themselves as to the proofs of our love? If they possessed any
delicacy of discernment, they would find a thousand signs that prove
more than the most signal favor granted.

Tell me, Marquis, what have I done to Monsieur de Coulanges? It is a
month since he has set foot in my house. But I will not reproach him,
I shall be very pleasant with