not necessary to have so many to overcome us, one alone is sufficient
to obtain the victory."

But I stuck to my proposition: "You pretend then that our virtue does
not depend upon ourselves, since you make it the puppet of occasion,
and of other causes foreign to our own will?"

"There is no doubt about it," she answered. "Answer me this: Can you
give yourself a lively or sedate disposition? Are you free to defend
yourself against a violent passion? Does it depend upon you to arrange
all the circumstances of your life, so that you will never find
yourself alone with a lover who adores you, who knows his advantages
and how to profit by them? Does it depend upon you to prevent his
pleadings, I assume them to be innocent at first, from making upon
your senses the impression they must necessarily make? Certainly not;
to insist upon such an anomaly would be to deny that the magnet is
master of the needle. And you pretend that your virtue is your own
work, that you can personally claim the glory of an advantage that is
liable to be taken from you at any moment? Virtue in women, like all
the other blessings we enjoy, is a gift from Heaven; it is a favor
which Heaven may refuse to grant us. Reflect then how unreasonable you
are in glorifying in your virtue: consider your injustice when you so
cruelly abuse those who have had the misfortune to be born with an
ungovernable inclination toward love, whom a sudden violent passion
has surprised, or who have found themselves in the midst of
circumstances out of which you would not have emerged with any greater
glory.

"Shall I give you another proof of the justice of my ideas? I will
take it from your own conduct. Are you not dominated by that deep