of your heart
is the summit of misfortune; that she knows nobody who can indemnify
her for the loss of it. All these sentiments are false. It is not an
afflicted lover who speaks; it is a vain woman, desperate at being
anticipated, exasperated at the lack of power in her charms, worrying
over a plan to replace you promptly, anxious to give herself an
appearance of sensibility, and to appear worthy of a better fate. She
justifies this thought of Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld: "Women do not
shed tears over the lovers they have had, so much because they loved
them, as to appear more worthy of being loved." It is for D---- to
enjoy the sentiment.

She must indeed, have a very singular idea of you to hope that she can
impose upon you. Do you wish to know what she is? The Chevalier is
actually without an affair of the heart on hand, engage him to take
your place. I have not received two letters from you that do not speak
of the facility with which she will be consoled for having lost you. A
woman of her age begins to fear that she will not recover what she has
lost, and so she is obliged to degrade her charms by taking the first
new comer. Perhaps her sorrow is true, but she deceives you as to the
motives she gives for it. Break these chains without scruple. In
priding yourself on your constancy and delicacy for such an object,
you appear to me to be as ridiculous as you were when you lacked the
same qualities on another occasion.

Do you remember, Marquis, what Monsieur de Coulanges said to us one
day? "Constancy is the virtue of people of limited merit. Have they
profited by the caprice of an amiable woman to establish themselves in
her heart? the sentiment of medicrioty fixes them there, it
intimidates them, they dare not make an effort to please others. Too
happy at having surprised her heart, they are afraid of abandoning a
good which they may not find elsewhere, and, as an instant's attention
to their little worth might undeceive this woman, what do they then
do? They elevate constancy up among the virtues; they transform love
into a superstition; they know how to interest reason in the
preservation of a heart which they owe only to caprice, occasion, or
surprise." Be on your guard against imitating these shallow
personages. Hearts are the money of gallantry; amiable people are the
assets of society, whose destiny is to circulate in it and make many
happy. A constant man is therefore as guilty as a miser who impedes