Silent episode in the queen's apartment the evening of the flight of the Princesse de Condé: the ministers transfixed to the wall and mute, the King striding up and down.
XI
Nothing so interesting as passion: for there everything is unforeseen, and the principal is the victim. Nothing so flat as gallantry, where everything is a matter of calculation, as in all the prosaic affairs of life.
XII
At the end of a visit you always finish by treating a lover better than you meant to. (L., November 2nd, 1818).
XIII
In spite of genius in an upstart, the influence of rank always makes itself felt. Think of Rousseau losing his heart to all the "ladies" he met, and weeping tears of rapture because the Duke of L——, one of the dullest courtiers of the period, deigns to take the right side rather than the left in a walk with a certain M. Coindet, friend of Rousseau! (L., May 3rd, 1820.)
XIV
Women's only educator is the world. A mother in love does not hesitate to appear in the seventh heaven of delight, or in the depth of despair, before her daughters aged fourteen or fifteen. Remember that, under these happy skies, plenty of women are quite nice-looking till forty-five, and the majority are married at eighteen.