ences of all that. Do you not see how
she affects to rouse your jealousy by praising the Chevalier, your
ancient rival? For once, I can assure you that you will not so soon be
affected by the languors we mentioned a short time ago. Jealousy will
give you something to think about. Do you count for nothing, the
sufferings of the Marquise? You will soon see her, the ravages of the
smallpox will not alone disfigure her face, for her disposition will
be very different, as soon as she learns the extent of her misfortune.
How I pity her; how I pity other women! With what cordiality she will
hate them and tear them to tatters! The Countess is her best friend,
will she be so very long? She is so handsome, her complexion casts the
others in the shade. What storms I foresee!

I had forgotten to quarrel with you about your treatment of me. You
have been so indiscreet as to show my recent letters to M. de la
Rochefoucauld. I will cease writing you if you continue to divulge my
secret. I am willing to talk personally with him about my ideas, but I
am far from flattering myself that I write well enough to withstand
the criticism of a reader like him.

XXXIX

The True Value of Compliments Among Women

The marks left by the smallpox on the Marquise's face have set her
wild. Her resolution not to show herself for a long time does not
surprise me. How could she appear in public in such a state? If the
accident which humiliates her had not happened, how she would have
made the poor Chevalier suffer! Does not this prove that female virtue
depends upon circumstances, and diminishes with pride?

How I fear a similar example in the case of the Countess! Nothing is
more dangerous for a woman than the weaknesses of her friend; love,
already too seductive in itself, becomes more so through the contagion
of example, if I may so speak; it is not only in our heart that it
gathers strength; it acquires new weapons against reason from its
environment. A woman who has fallen under its ban, deems herself
interested, for her own justification, in conducting her friend to the
edge of the same precipice, and I am not, therefore, surprised at what
the Marquise says in your favor. Up to the present moment they have
been guided by the same principles; what a shame, then, for her, that
the Countess could not have been guaranteed against the effects of it!
Now, the Marquise has a strong reason the more for contributing to
the defeat of her friend;