t all or absolve me upon the
easiest penance. This I had a strong inclination to try, but I know not
what scruple put me off of it, for I could never bring myself to like
having to do with those priests. And though it was strange that I, who
had thus prostituted my chastity and given up all sense of virtue in two
such particular cases, living a life of open adultery, should scruple
anything, yet so it was. I argued with myself that I could not be a
cheat in anything that was esteemed sacred; that I could not be of one
opinion, and then pretend myself to be of another; nor could I go to
confession, who knew nothing of the manner of it, and should betray
myself to the priest to be a Huguenot, and then might come into
trouble; but, in short, though I was a whore, yet I was a Protestant
whore, and could not act as if I was popish, upon any account
whatsoever.

But, I say, I satisfied myself with the surprising occasion, that as it
was all irresistible, so it was all lawful; for that Heaven would not
suffer us to be punished for that which it was not possible for us to
avoid; and with these absurdities I kept conscience from giving me any
considerable disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy
as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and
had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up
in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that
sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of
pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful brings
us to ourselves again.

I have, I confess, wondered at the stupidity that my intellectual part
was under all that while; what lethargic fumes dozed the soul; and how
was it possible that I, who in the case before, where the temptation was
many ways more forcible and the arguments stronger and more
irresistible, was yet under a continued inquietude on account of the
wicked life I led, could now live in the most profound tranquillity and
with an uninterrupted peace, nay, even rising up to satisfaction and
joy, and yet in a more palpable state of adultery than before; for
before, my gentleman, who called me wife, had the pretence of his wife
being parted from him, refusing to do the duty of her office as a wife
to him. As for me, my circumstances were the same; but as for the
prince, as he had a fine and extraordinary lady, or princess, of his
own, so he had had two or three m