These modern
gentlemen are worth less, and think more of themselves. Believe
me, my dear, all these adventures that have been made public, and
now are turned against our good Louis XV, were kept quite secret
at first. If it had not been for a pack of poetasters,
scribblers, and moralists, who hung about our waiting-women, and
took down their slanders, our epoch would have appeared in
literature as a well-conducted age. I am justifying the century
and not its fringe. Perhaps a hundred women of quality were
lost; but for every one, the rogues set down ten, like the
gazettes after a battle when they count up the losses of the
beaten side. And in any case I do not know that the Revolution
and the Empire can reproach us; they were coarse, dull,
licentious times. Faugh! it is revolting. Those are the
brothels of French history.
"This preamble, my dear child," she continued after a pause,
"brings me to the thing that I have to say. If you care for
Montriveau, you are quite at liberty to love him at your ease,
and as much as you can. I know by experience that, unless you
are locked up (but locking people up is out of fashion now), you
will do as you please; I should have done the same at your age.
Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my right to be the
mother of future Ducs de Langeais. So mind appearances. The
Vidame is right. No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices
which we are foolish enough to make for their love. Put yourself
in such a position that you may still be M.
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