Yet this authority implies neither attachment nor esteem, but merely politeness and compliance with custom; for it is as essential to French gallantry to despise the women as to oblige them; and this contempt is taken as a proof, that a man has seen enough of the world to know the sex. Whoever treats them with respect is deemed a novice, a knight-errant, one who has known woman only in romances. They judge so equitably of themselves, that to honour them is to forfeit their esteem; so that the principal requisite in a man of gallantry is superlative impertinence. Let the ladies of this country pretend what they will, they are, in spite of themselves, extremely good-natured. All men who are burthened with a multiplicity of affairs, are difficult of access, and without commiseration; and in Paris, the center of business of one of the most considerable nations in Europe, the men of consequence are particularly obdurate: those, therefore, who have any thing to ask, naturally apply to the ladies, whose ears are never shut against the unhappy; they console and serve them. In the midst of all their frivolous dissipation, they do not scruple to steal a few moments from their pleasure, and devote them to acts of benevolence; and though there may be some women mean enough to make an infamous traffic of their services, there are hundreds, on the contrary, who are daily employed in charitably assisting the distressed. However, it must be confessed, that they are sometimes so indiscreet, as to ruin an unfortunate man they happen not to know, in order to serve their own friend. But how is it possible to know every body in so extensive a country? or how can more be expected from good-nature destitute of real virtue, whose sublimest effort is not so much to do good, as to avoid evil? After all, it must be allowed that their inclinations are not naturally bad; that they do a great deal of good; that they do it from their hearts; that they alone preserve the remains of humanity, which are still to be found in Paris; and that without them, we should see the men avaricious and insatiable, like wolves devouring each other. I should have remained ignorant of all this, if I had not consulted their comedies and romances, whose authors are, perhaps, too apt to stumble upon those foibles from which they themselves are not exempt, rather than the virtues they happen not to possess; who, instead of encouraging their readers by praising their real virtues, amuse themselves with painting imaginary characters too perfect for imitation. Romances are perhaps the last vehicle of instruction that can be administered to a corrupt people. It were to be wished that none were suffered to prepare this medicine but men of honest principles and true sensibility; authors, whose writings should be a picture of their own hearts; who, instead of fixing virtue in the heavens, beyond the reach of our nature, would, by smoothing the way, insensibly tempt us out of the gulph of vice.