that they were sooner repulsed than other men, and ought to be sooner
complied with; intimating, though very genteely, that after a woman had
positively refused him once, he could not, like other men, wait with
importunities and stratagems, and laying long sieges; but as such men as
he stormed warmly, so, if repulsed, they made no second attacks; and,
indeed, it was but reasonable; for as it was below their rank to be long
battering a woman's constancy, so they ran greater hazards in being
exposed in their amours than other men did.

I took this for a satisfactory answer, and told his Highness that I had
the same thoughts in respect to the manner of his attacks; for that his
person and his arguments were irresistible; that a person of his rank
and a munificence so unbounded could not be withstood; that no virtue
was proof against him, except such as was able, too, to suffer
martyrdom; that I thought it impossible I could be overcome, but that
now I found it was impossible I should not be overcome; that so much
goodness, joined with so much greatness, would have conquered a saint;
and that I confessed he had the victory over me, by a merit infinitely
superior to the conquest he had made.

He made me a most obliging answer; told me abundance of fine things,
which still flattered my vanity, till at last I began to have pride
enough to believe him, and fancied myself a fit mistress for a prince.

As I had thus given the prince the last favour, and he had all the
freedom with me that it was possible for me to grant, so he gave me
leave to use as much freedom with him another way, and that was to have
everything of him I thought fit to command; and yet I did not ask of him
with an air of avarice, as if I was greedily making a penny of him, but
I managed him with such art that he generally anticipated my demands. He
only requested of me that I would not think of taking another house, as
I had intimated to his Highness that I intended, not thinking it good
enough to receive his visits in; but he said my house was the most
convenient that could possibly be found in all Paris for an amour,
especially for him, having a way out into three streets, and not
overlooked by any neighbours, so that he could pass and repass without
observation; for one of the back-ways opened into a narrow dark alley,
which alley was a thoroughfare or passage out of one street into
another; and any person that went in or out by the door had no more to
d