persuasion that every woman who wishes to preserve her virtue, need
never allow herself to be caught, that she must watch over the
smallest trifles, because they lead to things of greater importance?
It is much easier for you to take from men the desire to make an
attack upon your virtue by assuming a severe exterior, than to defend
against their attacks. The proof of this is in the fact that we give
young girls in their education as little liberty as is possible in
order to restrain them. We do more: a prudent mother does not rely
upon her fear of dishonor, nor upon the bad opinion she has of men,
she keeps her daughter out of sight; she puts it out of her power to
succumb to temptation. What is the excuse for so many precautions?
Because the mother fears the frailty of her pupil, if she is exposed
for an instant to danger.

"In spite of all these obstacles with which she is curbed, how often
does it not happen that love overcomes them all? A girl well trained,
or better, well guarded, laughs at her virtue, because she imagines it
is all her own, whereas, it is generally a slave rigorously chained
down, who thinks everybody is satisfied with him as long as he does
not run away. Let us inquire further into this: In what class do you
find abandoned females? In that where they have not sufficient wealth
or happiness constantly to provide themselves with the obstacles which
have saved you; in that, where men have attacked their virtue with
more audacity, more facility, more frequency, and more impunity, and
consequently with more advantages of every sort; in that, where the
impressions of education, of example, of pride, the desire of a
satisfactory establishment could not sustain them. Two doors below,
there is a woman whom you hate and despise. And in spite of the
outside aid which sustains that virtue, of which you are so proud, in
two days you might be more despicable than she, because you will have