The virtue so touchingly preached by the very beautiful words of the Génie du Christianisme[(50)] is thus reduced to not eating truffles for fear of a stomach-ache. It is quite a reasonable calculation, if you believe in hell; but it is a self-interested calculation, the most personal and prosaic possible. That philosophic virtue, which so well explains the return of Regulus to Carthage, and which was responsible for some similar incidents in our own Revolution,[1] proves, on the contrary, generosity of soul.
It is merely in order not to be burned in the next world, in a great caldron of boiling oil, that Madame de Tourvel resists Valmont. I cannot imagine how the idea, with all its ignominy, of being the rival of a caldron of boiling oil does not drive Valmont away.
How much more touching is Julie d'Étanges, respecting her vows and the happiness of M. de Wolmar.
What I say of Madame de Tourvel, I find applicable to the lofty virtue of Mistress Hutchinson. What a soul did Puritanism steal away from love!
One of the oddest peculiarities of this world is that men always think they know whatever it is clearly necessary for them to know. Hear them talk about politics, that very complicated science; hear them talk of marriage and morals.
[1] Memoirs of Madame Roland. M. Grangeneuve, who goes out for a walk at eight o'clock in a certain street, in order to be killed by the Capuchin Chabot. A death was thought expedient in the cause of liberty.
CHAPTER LVIII
STATE OF EUROPE WITH REGARD TO MARRIAGE
So far we have only treated the question of marriage according to theory;[1] we are now to treat it according to the facts.