Such examples of virtue were not met with only among the lower classes, which are naturally the most exposed to danger. All Rome was stirred to its depths by the dreadful fate of a young gentlewoman who, having been decoyed into the catacombs of St. Sebastian with the connivance of a maidservant, strangled herself rather than yield to the violence of the miscreant who devised the snare. She might well have been left to rest in the dim twilight of those silent vaults, where so many pure victims sleep under the seal of a cross and a dove; but Rome could not leave this flower of virtue to be forgotten, even in so sacred a spot: the poor body was crowned with laurel and borne in triumph like a trophy through the thronged streets of the city, the same fever of enthusiasm infecting both hovel and palace. No, women are not naturally sensual; animalism is utterly abhorrent to them, and however much their education may have been neglected, their deepest feelings are won by a man’s intellectual qualities, his moral authority, much more than by his physical beauty, a beauty often hard to trace. When they love deeply, even when they yield themselves, it is still with a sentiment of reserve and modesty; it would also seem as if they cannot dispense with the additional refinement of respect. Man, on the contrary, as all the world knows, has no sense of shame, and to get every possible enjoyment, love or no love, is his only aim. It is to singularly terrestrial Venuses that peoples and kings, judges and culprits, flock pell-mell. Is this a reason for despair? Cannot the obvious feebleness of women, their delicacy, the almost religious character of their love, become an element of attraction and power? Women, we are told, deliberately expose themselves to sharp tussles. That is true. But if men were platonic, what merit would women have in being platonic too? And surely no one would impose on men, as the first rule of intercourse, the obligation of remaining in marble coldness beside beautiful creatures of passion, whose very nature is to set their pulses throbbing! “Ah! impossible!” cries Margaret of France, to whom the mere idea seems almost an insult. It is wise to recognise danger, but it would be disgraceful to flee from it! In France, a country hostile to the beautiful and to sentiment, the women who preached the gospel of love were, as we have said, high-born dames, whose very position made them wardens of men’s souls, and whose nobleness constituted part of the public patrimony. Maybe they did not believe themselves predestined to impeccability; but while enjoying a wonderful store of goodness and benevolence, they were at the same time proud, high-strung, courageous. Far from terrifying, peril inspirited them; to shrink from it would have appeared disgraceful to Anne of France, who represents prudence incarnate. Women are not so frail as people are pleased to say. They are only frail when they wish to be; and then it is duty that guides their steps.