your love, and swear by everything lovers hold sacred that you will
always love. Will you believe my predictions another time? However,
you would be better treated if you were more reasonable, so you are
told, and limit your sentiments to simple friendship. The name of
lover assumed by you is revolting to the Countess. You should never
quarrel over quality when it is the same under any name, and follow
the advice Madame de la Sablière gives you in the following madrigal:

Bélise ne veut point d'amant,
Mais voudrait un ami fidèle,
Qui pour elle eût des soins et de l'empressement,
Et qui même la trouvât belle.
Amants, qui soupirez pour elle,
Sur ma parole tenez bon,
Bélise de l'amour ne hait que le nom.

(Bélise for a lover sighed not,
But she wanted a faithful friend,
Who would cuddle her up and care for her lot,
And even her beauty defend.
Oh, you lovers, whose sighs I commend,
'Pon my word, hold fast to such game,
What of love Bélise hates is only the name.)

But you are grieved by the injurious doubts cast upon your sincerity
and constancy. You are disbelieved because all men are false and
perjured, and because they are inconstant, love is withheld. How
fortunate you are! How little the Countess knows her own heart, if she
expects to persuade you of her indifference in that fashion! Do you
wish me to place a true value on the talk she is giving you? She is