ends. The desire for love is, in a woman, a large part of her nature.
Her virtue is nothing but a piece of patchwork.

The homilies of your estimable Countess may be actually sincere,
although in such cases, a woman always exaggerates, but she deludes
herself if she expects to maintain to the end, sentiments so severe
and so delicate. Fix this fact well in your mind, Marquis, that these
female metaphysicians are not different in their nature from other
women. Their exterior is more imposing, their morals more austere, but
inquire into their acts, and you will discover that their heart
affairs always finish the same as those of women less refined. They
are a species of the "overnice," forming a class of their own, as I
told Queen Christine of Sweden, one day: "They are the Jansenists of
love." (Puritans.)

You should be on your guard, Marquis, against everything women have to
say on the chapter of gallantry. All the fine systems of which they
make such a pompous display, are nothing but vain illusions, which
they utilize to astonish those who are easily deceived. In the eyes of
a clear sighted man, all this rubbish of stilted phrases is but a
parade at which he mocks, and which does not prevent him from
penetrating their real sentiments. The evil they speak of love, the
resistance they oppose to it, the little taste they pretend for its
pleasures, the measures they take against it, the fear they have of
it, all that springs from love itself. Their very manner renders it
homage, indicates that they harbor the thought of it. Love assumes a
thousand different forms in their minds. Like pride, it lives and
flourishes upon its own defeat; it is never overthrown that it does
not spring up again with renewed force.