is virtue practiced among your own sex, that you
have written maxims in which their self-love is so little flattered.
I should be very much humiliated on my own part, if I did not say to
myself what I have already said to you in this note, that you judge
better the hearts of men than those of women, and that perhaps you do
not know yourself the true motive which makes you esteem them less. If
you had always met those whose temperament had been submitted to virtue,
and in whom the senses were less strong than reason, you would think
better of a certain number who distinguish themselves always from the
multitude; and it seems to me that Mme. de La Fayette and myself deserve
that you should have a better opinion of the sex in general.

Mme. de La Fayette writes to the Marquise: "All people of good sense are
not so persuaded of the general corruption as is M. de La Rochefoucauld.
I return to you a thousand thanks for all you have done for this
gentleman."--At a later period she said: "La Rochefoucauld stimulated my
intellect, but I reformed his heart." It is to be regretted that he had
not known her sooner.

At his request Mme. de Sable wrote a review of the maxims, which she
submitted to him for approval. It seems to have been a fair presentation
of both sides, but he thought it too severe, and she kindly gave him
permission to change it to suit himself. He took her at her word,
dropped the adverse criticisms, retained the eulogies, and published
it in the "Journal des Savants" as he wished it to go to the world. The
diplomatic Marquise saved her conscience and kept her friend.

The maxims of La Rochefoucauld, which are familiar to all, have extended
into a literature. That he generalized from his own point of view, and
applied to universal humanity the motives of a class bent upon favor
and precedence, is certainly true. But whatever we may think of his
sentiments, which were those of a man of the world whose observations
were largely in the atmosphere of courts, we are compelled to admit
his unrivaled finish and perfection of form. Similar theories of human
nature run through the maxims of Esprit and Saint Evremond, without
the exquisite turn which makes each one of La Rochefoucauld's a gem in
itself. His tone was that of a disappointed courtier, with a vein of
sadness only half disguised by cold philosophy and bitter cynicism. La
Bruyere, with a broader outlook upon humanity, had much of the same fine
analysis, with l