love with them is a more violent passion than with men, but they have
a characteristic which, properly directed may serve as an antidote.
All women, to say the least, are as vain as they are sensitive,
whence, the cure for sensitiveness is vanity. While a woman is
occupied in pleasing in other ways than by the beauty of her figure,
she loses sight of the sentiment which inspires her to act. In truth,
this sentiment will not cease to be the "determining motive" (you must
permit me to use some technical term of art), but it will not be the
actual object presented to her attention, and that is something
gained. Wholly devoted to the care of becoming perfect in the species
of glory to which she aspires, this same desire, of which love will be
the source, will turn against love, by dividing the attention of the
mind and the affections of the heart; in a word it will create a
diversion.

But perhaps you will tell me that there are women of spirit and
talents beyond the reach of attack. Whence you infer that men who do
not dislike freedom will avoid them, but that fools and men of
intelligence cultivate them. That is true, but the fools take to them
because they do not perceive the difficulty in their way, and men of
intelligence do not avoid them, because they aspire to surmount it.

Now, ought not you, who are a military man, to appreciate everything I
say to you about talent? I will suppose a campaign upon which you have
entered; you have been given charge of conducting the siege of a city.
Would you be satisfied if the governor, persuaded that the city is not
impregnable, should open to you the gates without having given you the
least occasion to distinguish yourself? I venture to say not; he
should resist, and the more he seeks to cover himself with glory, the
more glory he gives you. Well, Marquis, in love as in war, the