Their Hearts Are
Not Susceptible Of Deep Impressions; And, Such Is Their Levity,
That The Imagination Has Not Time To Brood Long Over Any
Disagreeable Idea, Or Sensation.
As a Frenchman piques himself on
his gallantry, he no sooner makes a conquest of a female's heart,
than he exposes her character, for the gratification of his
vanity.
Nay, if he should miscarry in his schemes, he will forge
letters and stories, to the ruin of the lady's reputation. This
is a species of perfidy which one would think should render them
odious and detestable to the whole sex; but the case is
otherwise. I beg your pardon, Madam; but women are never better
pleased, than when they see one another exposed; and every
individual has such confidence in her own superior charms and
discretion, that she thinks she can fix the most volatile, and
reform the most treacherous lover.
If a Frenchman is admitted into your family, and distinguished by
repeated marks of your friendship and regard, the first return he
makes for your civilities is to make love to your wife, if she is
handsome; if not, to your sister, or daughter, or niece. If he
suffers a repulse from your wife, or attempts in vain to debauch
your sister, or your daughter, or your niece, he will, rather
than not play the traitor with his gallantry, make his addresses
to your grandmother; and ten to one, but in one shape or another,
he will find means to ruin the peace of a family, in which he has
been so kindly entertained. What he cannot accomplish by dint of
compliment, and personal attendance, he will endeavour to effect,
by reinforcing these with billets-doux, songs, and verses, of
which he always makes a provision for such purposes. If he is
detected in these efforts of treachery, and reproached with his
ingratitude, he impudently declares, that what he had done was no
more than simple gallantry, considered in France as an
indispensible duty on every man who pretended to good breeding.
Nay, he will even affirm, that his endeavours to corrupt your
wife, or your daughter, were the most genuine proofs he could
give of his particular regard for your family.
If a Frenchman is capable of real friendship, it must certainly
be the most disagreeable present he can possibly make to a man of
a true English character, You know, Madam, we are naturally
taciturn, soon tired of impertinence, and much subject to fits of
disgust. Your French friend intrudes upon you at all hours: he
stuns you with his loquacity: he teases you with impertinent
questions about your domestic and private affairs: he attempts to
meddle in all your concerns; and forces his advice upon you with
the most unwearied importunity: he asks the price of every thing
you wear, and, so sure as you tell him undervalues it, without
hesitation: he affirms it is in a bad taste, ill-contrived, ill-made;
that you have been imposed upon both with respect to the
fashion and the price; that the marquise of this, or the countess
of that, has one that is perfectly elegant, quite in the bon ton,
and yet it cost her little more than you gave for a thing that
nobody would wear.
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