‘By the third I must admit to be vanquished,’ she continues, ‘the fourth is not unlike that of Sappho’s! “That courtiers, although they admit the necessity of feminine grace preceding every movement of their passions, are heretics in so far that they hold the wishes of ladies to be of such a nature that the will of man can either, as it chooses, resist or obey them.”’
‘Delicious!’ cries the company, ‘that is furiously well expressed, and a well-merited condemnation of Condé and his petits-maîtres.’
‘And now we come to the fifth, which calls for as much pruning as one of the famous Port-Royal pear-trees. “That it is an error of provincials and other barbarians to say that lovers burn with a universal flame, or that les honnêtes femmes give their favours to all men.”’ Loud applause follows.
‘Mademoiselle,’ says Théodamas, ‘you have converted me to Jansenism.’
‘Such a distinguished convert as the great Théodamas will certainly compensate the sect for all the bulls launched against it by the Holy Father,’ says Madeleine gallantly.
‘Well, I must admit that by one thing the Jansenists have certainly added to la douceur de la vie, and that is by what we may call their Miracle of the Graces,’ says Sappho.
‘What does Madame mean by “the Miracle of the Graces”?’ asks Madeleine, smiling.
‘I mean the multiplication of what till their day had been three Graces into at least four times that number. To have done so deserves, I think, to be called a miracle.’
‘The most miraculous—if I may use the expression—of the miracles recorded in the Lives of the Saints has always seemed to me the Miracle of the Beautiful City,’ says Madeleine innocently.