He believed not at all, or very faintly, in altruism. He had to sweep away affected and therefore erroneous suppositions with regard to morality, and particularly with regard to social motives. He had come back to Paris, after his long and irksome exile, with a terrible clear-sightedness, and he saw that society had gone to pieces and that truth was essential to its rebuilding. He was convinced--and this must be asserted in the face of his own apparent cynicism--he was convinced of the existence of pure virtue, but he thought that _amour-propre_ in the individual, and conventionality (what was then meant by _la coutume_) in the social order, had made it almost as rare as the dodo. He wished, by his stringent exposure of the arts of lying, to save virtue before it was absolutely extinct. He had the instinct of race-preservation.[6] [Footnote 6: It is possible that the conversation of Mme de Sable concentrated his thoughts on self-love. A contemporary MS. says of that lady, "Elle flatte fort l'amour propre quand elle parle aux gens." But egotism was a new discovery which fascinated everybody in the third quarter of the century.] Let us turn to the few, but profoundly beautiful reflections which form the constructive element in La Rochefoucauld's teaching. His aim in edification is to train us to dig through the crust of social sham to the limpid truth which exists in the dark centre of our souls-- "If there is a pure love, he says, exempt from all admixture with other passions, it is that which lies hidden at the bottom of the heart, and of which we ourselves are ignorant."