I love my son with all my heart; but I cannot see how any one else can, for his manners are little calculated to inspire love. In the first place, he is incapable of the passion, or of being attached to any one for a long time; in the second, he is not sufficiently polished and gallant to make love, but sets about it rudely and coarsely; in the third, he is very indiscreet, and tells plainly all that he has done.
I have said to him a hundred times, "I wonder how any woman can run after you, whom they ought rather to fly from."
He would reply, laughing, "Ah! you do not know the libertine women of the present day; provided they are talked of, they are satisfied."
There was an affair of gallantry, but a perfectly honourable one, between him and the Queen of Spain. I do not know whether he had the good fortune to be agreeable to her, but I know he was not at all in love with her. He thought her mien and figure good, but neither her manners nor her face were agreeable to him.
He was not in any degree romantic, and, not knowing how to conduct himself in this affair, he said to the Duc de Grammont, "You understand the manner of Spanish gallantry; pray tell me a little what I ought to say and do."
He could not, however, suit the fancy of the Queen, who was for pure gallantry; those who were less delicate he was better suited for, and for this reason it was said that libertine women used to run after him.
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He never denied that he was indiscreet and inconstant. Being one day with me at the theatre, and hearing Valere say he was tired of his mistress, "That has been my case often," he cried. I told him he never was in love in his life, and that what he called love was mere debauchery.
He replied, "It is very true that I am not a hero of romance, and that I do not make love like a Celadon, but I love in my way."
"Your way," I said, "is an extremely gross one." . . . This made him laugh.