To letters such as these she never received any answer! as the charms of a woman's eloquence never have any force, when those of her person are expired (in the eyes of her lover I mean): it might be perhaps as easy to persuade a man to dance, who had lost the use of his limbs.
I shall pass over the first ten years of her retirement, as they furnish nothing more than the unwearied attentions she took in employing every means for the instruction of her son, daughter, and ward. I shall only observe, that the regularity of her conduct gained her the esteem of every one. She was a friend to virtue under any denomination, and an enemy to vice under any colour. She established an institution for the provision of the infirm and destitute. This was constructed on that wise and excellent plan, that excludes the undeserving from participating in the charity, and extends only to those who, from their real necessities, are proper objects of benevolence.—At that period she was advised to take her son to the capital. But she wisely considered that the education which commonly attends high birth or great fortune, very often corrupts or sophisticates nature; whilst in those of the middle state she remains unmixed and unaltered. I have somewhere read; Jamais les grandes passions et les grandes vertus ne sont nées, & ne se sont nourries que dans le silence & la retrait. L'homme en societé perd tous ses traits distinctifs: ce n'est plus qu' une froide copie de ce qui l'environne. Voilà pour quelle raison on nous accuse de manquer de caractere: nous ne vivons pas assez avec nous-mêmes, & nous empruntons trop des autres.
The duchess procured for her son's tutor, a very respectable man, who was at the utmost pains in forming his morals, and improving his understanding; while so many of the degenerate nobility in great cities are trifling away their time and their fortunes, in idle dissipations, in sensual enjoyments, or irrational diversions, and making mere amusement the great business of their lives. Happiness and merit are the result, not so much of truth and knowledge, as of attaining integrity and moderation. Many ridiculed the duchess's plan of education, of debarring herself from those pleasures and enjoyments her youth, rank, and beauty so well intitled her to: But she often observed it would be the height of imbecility to judge of her felicity by the imagination of others; considering nothing under the title of happiness, but what she wished to be in the possession of, or what was the result of her own voluntary choice. Women of the world counteract their intention, in so assiduously courting pleasure, as it only makes it fly further from them. They will not understand, that pleasure is to be purchased, and that industry is the price of it; to reject the one, is to renounce the other. They are to learn that pleasure, which they idolize, must now and then be quitted in order to be regained. They have tried in vain to perpetuate it, by attempting variety and refinement. Their fertile invention has multiplied the objects of amusement, and created new ones every day, without making any real acquisition. All these fantastic pleasures, which are founded on variety, make no lasting impressions on the mind; they only serve to prove the impossibility of permanent happiness, of which some women entertain chimerical expectations: but the duchess was too rational to make amusement her principal object. A woman that is hurried away by a fondness for it, is, generally speaking, a very useless member of the community: A party of pleasure will make her forget every connection: and she is often sick without knowing where her complaint lies, because she has nothing to do, and is tired of being well.
The duchess had loved her husband passionately. If any person had a desire of ingratiating themselves with her, they had only to begin by him: To praise, to please, or admire him, opened to them a reception in her heart. But our best virtues, when pushed to a certain degree, are on the point of becoming vices: She soon found she was to blame, in dedicating herself too fondly even to this beloved object. She exhausted her whole sensibility on him, and in proportion to the strength of her attachment, was the mortification she endured in being abandoned by him. But had not even this been her fate, the extravagant excesses of passion are but too generally followed by an intolerable langour. The woman who wishes to preserve her husband's affection, should be careful to conceal from him the extent of hers: there should be always something left for him to expect. Fancy governs mankind: and when the imagination is cloyed, reason is a slave to caprice.
Women do not want judgment to determine, penetration to foresee, nor resolution to execute; and Providence has not given them beauty to create love, without understanding to preserve it. The pleasures of which they are susceptible, are proportioned to the capacity and just extent of their feelings. They are not made for those raptures which transport them beyond themselves: these are a kind of convulsions, which can never last. But there are infinite numbers of pleasures, which, though they make slighter impressions, are nevertheless more valuable. These are renewed every day under different forms, and instead of excluding each other, unite together in happy concert, producing that temperate glow of mind which preserves it vigorous, and keeps it in a delightful equanimity. How much are those of the fair-sex to be pitied who are insensible to such attainments, and who look upon life as gloomy, which is exempt from the agitation of unruly passions! As such prepossessions deprive them of pleasures which are much preferable to those which arise from dangerous attachments, the duchess knew how to make choice of her amusements, and improved her understanding at the same time that she gratified her feelings. Life to those who know how to make a proper use of it, is strewed with delights of every kind, which, in their turn, flatter the senses and the mind; but the latter is never so agreeably engaged as in the conversation of intelligent persons, who are capable of conveying both instruction and entertainment. The duchess preferred the conversation of such, to men of the world; being sensible she had every thing to gain on one side, and every thing to lose on the other.
The Baron de Luce resided in the same part of the country. He was a man of great gallantry, wit, and humour. He judged it impossible that a woman in the bloom of beauty, possessed of the united advantages resulting from rank, riches, and youth, should retire to an obscure part of the world, and sequester herself from (what he judged) the pleasures of life, without being compelled by her husband or prompted by some secret inclination which she wished to conceal. Determined to unravel this mystery, and to amuse himself during the time he staid in the neighbourhood, he tried to insinuate himself into her good opinion—but without giving any offence she avoided entering into his plans. He still persisted in his intentions, judging, as he wrote well, the duchess would be glad to enter into a correspondence; but he found nothing in the reception she gave him that was for his purpose, to embellish the history of his amours. But what he undertook at first from vanity, became at last sufficient punishment for him. The more he saw of her conduct the more his respect increased, but which instead of making him relinquish his intentions (from a conviction of the inefficacy of the pursuit) made him persist in them, as he then felt the passion which at first he feigned.
The duchess knew the predicament on which she stood; but as the hatred of men of a certain character is less pernicious than their love, she gave orders never to admit him into her presence. The good or bad reputation of women depends not so much upon the propriety of their own conduct, as it does upon a lucky or unlucky combination of circumstances in certain situations. Some men calumniate them for no other reason, but because they are in love with them. They revenge themselves upon them for the want of that merit which renders them despicable in their eyes. This was the case with the Baron; he insinuated there were reasons which he knew that rendered it highly proper for the duchess to live in the manner she did, speaking in a style which conveyed more than met the ear! The people he addressed greedily listened to what seemed to bring the duchess more on a footing with themselves; a thousand stories were circulated to her prejudice (though innocence itself): Thus if there be but the least foundation for slander, some people believe themselves fully authorized to publish whatever malice dares invent. But there are no enemies more dangerous to the reputation of women, than lovers that cannot gain the reciprocal affection of their mistresses. These reports were confirmed from another cause—A lady of fortune in the neighbourhood became much attached to a man who resided with the duchess as her son's tutor; he was ingenuous, sensible, and much respected. She offered him her hand, and as she possessed a handsome fortune could not conceive how he could decline that happiness. As he was constantly at home, agreeable to the stories that had been circulated, she concluded at once (and then affirmed) he was a favourite of the duchess.
Self-love is of the nature of the polypus; though you sever her branches or arms, and even divide her trunk, yet she finds means to reproduce herself. In consequence of the information the duke received from this lady, who wrote to him in the character of an anonymous friend, he left Paris and his mistress abruptly; and, to the great surprise of his wife, came to—. He accosted her in a distant, but respectful manner.—Nothing gives so sharp a point to one's aversion as good-breeding—The duchess, unconscious of having given him any occasion of offence, was highly delighted at his return, flattering herself with a return of his affection. And as she considered him the aggressor, received him graciously, insisting that no mention should be made of past transactions; assuring him that she still retained the same love for him, and as she regarded him as the first of human beings, had perhaps been too sanguine in expecting his constancy, as so many temptations must occur from his superiority to the rest of mankind. She thought he was but too amiable—that his very vices had charms beyond other men's virtues. Adding that (grievous as his neglect had been to her) yet she had never done anything that could reflect upon his honor! He heard her in a sullen humour; his inclinations were revived by remarking, that time, instead of diminishing, had added to her charms: this increased his resentment, and he answered, that the worst a bad woman can do, is to make herself ridiculous; it is on herself only that she can entail infamy—but men of honor have a degree of it to maintain, superior to that which is in a woman's keeping. Had she had a mind to retaliate, she might easily have said, that a man of honor and virtue which, in themselves indeed, are always inseparably connected, are but too often separated in the absurd and extravagant opinions of mankind. For what a strange perversion of reason is it, to call a person a man of honor who has scarcely a grain of virtue! She only observed, we are indeed civilized into brutes; and a false idea of honor has almost reduced us into Hob's first state of nature, by making us barbarous. Honor now is no more than an imaginary being, worshipped by men of the world, to which they frequently offer human sacrifices. He told her she needed not be troubled for her minion: and retiring to rest, left her quite at a loss to account for his conduct.
It is not sufficient we know our own innocence; it is necessary, for a woman's happiness, not to be suspected.
For unfortunately after she has been once censured (however falsely) she must expect the envenomed shafts of malice ever ready to be let fly at her, and that in the transaction of any affairs that will admit of two interpretations (to avoid the worst, and enjoy an unblemished reputation). It is not enough to govern herself with propriety, there must be nothing that will carry two interpretations in the accidents of her life: A woman must therefore be necessarily always guilty, when innocence has need of many justifications. Happy are those who are not exposed to such inconveniences!