Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas (free e books to read online .TXT) 📕

La Valliere shook her head sorrowfully, saying, “When one loves, it is neither beauty nor rank;—when one loves it should be the heart, or the eyes only, of him, or of her whom one loves.”

Montalais began to laugh loudly. “Heart, eyes,” she said; “oh, sugar-plums!”

“I speak for myself;” replied La Valliere.

“Noble sentiments,” said Athenais, with an air of protection, but with indifference.

“Are they not your own?” asked Louise.

“Perfectly so; but to continue: how can one pity a man who bestows his attentions upon such a woman as Madame? If any disproportion exists, it is on the count’s side.”

“Oh! no, no,” returned La Valliere; “it is on Madame’s side.”

“Explain yourself.”

“I will. Madame has not even a wish to know what love is. She diverts herself with the feeling, as children do with fireworks, form which a spark might set a palace on fire. It makes a display, and that is all she cares about. Besides, pleasure forms the tissue of which she wishes her life to be woven. M. de Guiche loves this illustrious personage, but she will never love him.”

Athenais laughed disdainfully. “Do people really ever love?” she said. “Where are the noble sentiments you just now uttered? Does not a woman’s virtue consist in the uncompromising refusal of every intrigue that might compromise her? A properly regulated woman, endowed with a natural heart, ought to look at men, make herself loved—adored, even, by them, and say at the very utmost but once in her life, ‘I begin to think that I ought not to have been what I am,—I should have detested this one less than others.’”

“Therefore,” exclaimed La Valliere, “that is what M. de Montespan has to expect.”

“Certainly; he, as well as every one else. What! have I not said that I admit he possesses a certain superiority, and would not that be enough? My dear child, a woman is a queen during the entire period nature permits her to enjoy sovereign power—from fifteen to thirty-five years of age. After that, we are free to have a heart, when we only have that left—”

“Oh, oh!” murmured La Valliere.

“Excellent,” cried Montalais; “a very masterly woman; Athenais, you will make your way in the world.”

“Do you not approve of what I say?”

“Completely,” replied her laughing companion.

“You are not serious, Montalais?” said Louise.

“Yes, yes; I approve everything Athenais has just said; only—”

“Only what?”

“Well, I cannot carry it out. I have the firmest principles; I form resolutions beside which the laws of the Stadtholder and of the King of Spain are child’s play; but when the moment arrives to put them into execution, nothing comes of them.”

“Your courage fails?” said Athenais, scornfully.

“Miserably so.”

“Great weakness of nature,” returned Athenais. “But at least you make a choice.”

“Why, no. It pleases fate to disappoint me in everything; I dream of emperors, and I find only—”

“Aure, Aure!” exclaimed La Valliere, “for pity’s sake, do not, for the pleasure of saying something witty, sacrifice those who love you with such devoted affection.”

“Oh, I do not trouble myself much about that; those who love me are sufficiently happy that I do not dismiss them altogether. So much the worse for myself if I have a weakness for any one, but so much the worse for others if I revenge myself upon them for it.”

“You are right,” said Athenais, “and, perhaps, you too will reach the goal. In other words, young ladies, that is termed being a coquette. Men, who are very silly in most things, are particularly so in confounding, under the term of coquetry, a woman’s pride, and love of changing her sentiments as she does her dress. I, for instance, am proud; that is to say, impregnable. I treat my admirers harshly, but without any pretention to retain them. Men call me a coquette, because they are vain enough to think I care for them. Other women—Montalais, for instance—have allowed themselves to be influenced by flattery; they would be lost were it not for that most fortunate principle of instinct which urges them to change suddenly, and punish the man whose devotion they so recently accepted.”

“A very learned dissertation,” said Montalais, in the tone of thorough enjoyment.

“It is odious!” murmured Louise.

“Thanks to that sort of coquetry, for, indeed, that is genuine coquetry,” continued Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente; “the lover who, a little while since, was puffed up with pride, in a minute afterwards is suffering at every pore of his vanity and self-esteem. He was, perhaps, already beginning to assume the airs of a conqueror, but now he retreats defeated; he was about to assume an air of protection towards us, but he is obliged to prostrate himself once more. The result of all this is, that, instead of having a husband who is jealous and troublesome, free from restraint in his conduct towards us, we have a lover always trembling in our presence, always fascinated by our attractions, always submissive; and for this simple reason, that he finds the same woman never twice of the same mind. Be convinced, therefore, of the advantages of coquetry. Possessing that, one reigns a queen among women in cases where Providence has withheld that precious faculty of holding one’s heart and mind in check.”

“How clever you are,” said Montalais, “and how well you understand the duty women owe themselves!”

“I am only settling a case of individual happiness,” said Athenais modestly; “and defending myself, like all weak, loving dispositions, against the oppressions of the stronger.”

“La Valliere does not say a word.”

“Does she not approve of what we are saying?”

“Nay; only I do not understand it,” said Louise. “You talk like people not called upon to live in this world of ours.”

“And very pretty your world is,” said Montalais.

“A world,” returned Athenais, “in which men worship a woman until she has fallen,—and insult her when she has fallen.”

“Who spoke to you of falling?” said Louise.

“Yours is a new theory, then; will you tell us how you intend to resist yielding to temptation, if you allow yourself to be hurried away by feelings of affection?”

“Oh!” exclaimed the young girl, raising towards the dark heavens her beautiful large eyes filled with tears, “if you did but know what a heart is, I would explain, and convince you; a loving heart is stronger than all your coquetry, more powerful than all your pride. A woman is never truly loved, I believe; a man never loves with idolatry, unless he feels sure he